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mauman
Jul 30, 2014

Whoever's got the biggest whiskers does the talking.
So, this isn't Shadowrun, but I figured y'all should check this game out.

It's called Star Crawlers, and if you like cyberpunk mixed with 1st person dungeoneering (but corporate locations not dungeons) and sci-fi I would HIGHLY recommend it.

Kanfy posted:

If you know exactly what happens in all three games then I trust your judgment, there's no hard ban of such talk in place or anything. People who haven't played the games but otherwise know the setting are the ones who ought to be the most careful.

Ah good. In that case I was talking about whole-meta cloning. Corps have the ability to make metas that are as sentient as needed, including almost brain dead ones. It's not really practical to do so unless you have particular needs for an experiment or something though.

Asamando (the ghoul nation) in particular sometimes invests in such things, but it's generally cheaper for them to buy Corps' prisoners and dissidents. Speaking of which, don't break the law in Asamando if you ever visit there in a Shadowrun game (or at least by all that's holy don't get caught). They're infamous for their prison systems for obvious reasons.

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Siegkrow
Oct 11, 2013

Arguing about Lore for 5 years and counting



Do they have an "all crimes are equal" Judge dredd schtick or do they reserve that for bad poo poo?
Like, could you get BBQ'd for piracy?

Siegkrow fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Jun 2, 2017

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Siegkrow posted:

Do they have an "all crimes are equal" Judge dredd schtick or do they reserve that for bad poo poo?
Like, could you get BBQ'd for piracy?

Judge Dredd is well aware of variable sentencing. It's why he says "(X) years in the cubes" and such.

The fact that every sentence is excessive doesn't mean all crimes are equal. It's just impeding a Judge in the execution of his duties is one of the big ticket items.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

mauman posted:

They're infamous for their prison systems for obvious reasons.

At least the sentences are short, and there's no overcrowding.

mauman
Jul 30, 2014

Whoever's got the biggest whiskers does the talking.

Siegkrow posted:

Do they have an "all crimes are equal" Judge dredd schtick or do they reserve that for bad poo poo?
Like, could you get BBQ'd for piracy?

They're trying to have a decent system.....but considering the U.N hasn't been impressed (including one U.N. team accidentally being added to lunch disappearing) I'd say they're failing badly.

Speaking of which, the Corporate Council recognizes the Asamando, but the U.N. most certainly does not.

mauman fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Jun 3, 2017

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


The UN matters even less in Shadowrun than it does in the real world (the old nations were already gutted by corporate influence, the new ones don't give a gently caress) so it's not really an issue.

Kanfy
Jan 9, 2012

Just gotta keep walking down that road.
Part 14 - Crusader Queens










I like to think our drones are equipped with tiny robot hands they use to climb up ladders.



Null sweat. I figured you could use the backup.

Yeah, you never know what sort of firepower to expect in one of these BTL squats.

From my experience the answer to that tends to be "level-appropriate".



What, no rescue missions or having to looking all over the city or anything? Did we slip into a fever dream somewhere between last time and now? Are we gonna wake up at Stevie J's and realize we've been in a BTL all along?

Good job. Thanks.

[She looks at you, her scarred face soft.] Least I can do.



Right behind you babe. Let's do this.

Paco does his best to occasionally interject with random comments lest everyone forgets that he's still around.





Coyote is sporting a new and considerably less bloody look and a new arm, which is literally the cheapest 1000 nuyen one available at Dr. Castle's. So much for lasers or gatling guns.



On the other hand (not literally) her R&R and operation have done her body good, mostly. Her Charisma and Close Combat have both gone down by one and her Unarmed skill is now completely gone, but in exchange she has gotten +1 Armor, Ranged Combat and Dodge in addition to +2 Throwing Weapons, Pistols, Shotguns and BioTech. All her losses are insignificant so overall she's far more capable than before.



This time she also has the Ares Predator she had bought in addition to the shotgun she grabbed after her rescue. Paco's loadout remains the same as before, though his stats have increased slightly as well with his Armor going from 0 to 3 being the most significant improvement.



Let's chat with the doorman.



[She leans in, whispers in your ear.] This guy's a clocker - trades work time for chips. Part salesman, part lookout. Probably has a signal device for the guys inside.

You wanna go on a ride?

There's a handful of questions we can throw his way.

You sell BTLs, right?

[He grins a lopsided grin.] Oh yeah, chummer. Oh yeah. Better-Than-Life. Definitely better. Dreamchips. Mindbenders. SimStim. Simsense without peak limits. High-octane intensity.

What kind of rides can I go on?

Hope we're tall enough to enter them all.



[Coyote's eyes are hard, her pupils tight little pinpricks of hate.]

You do snuff too, don't you?

[The clocker looks around. More nervous now.]

Maybe yeah. Maybe. For the right price. You can feel it. What it's like to die. What it's like to kill.

But can I feel what it's like... to be loved?

Well, probably. Bet that's a pretty popular one even.


How does this place operate? How do I get in?

That's the best part. The best part! It's a lab - they test the new stuff here. The hottest drek. You can place a special order an' they'll make it happen. You buy a pass card from the guy at the door. It'll get you in an' out anytime you want. Then you can buy a beetle and slot right there. Our guys guard you while you're chipping. Safest way, chummer. Safest way.

Don't you think you're hurting people selling them this drek?



I usually go for diplomatic choices over violent ones, but that's just too tempting.



More like BTL Clocked :smug:

Despite our Strength being on the level where the most impressive display of physical prowess we could hope for is successfully swatting a fly, this guy goes down like a sack of potatoes in one hit.



Proceeding inside, we see the second door guy down the hall. Let's talk to the worried-looking woman to our left first, though. Maybe she knows something.



You sound like you know from experience.



...to record. [Tears stream down her face.]

For some reason I'm slowly starting to get the distinct feeling that this BTL business might be pretty uncool.

Do you have a pass card to get in there?

No. But Jamal has... my son's card. Took it off his... took it off him when his brain fried. Jamal's down the hall. Don't know if he'll give it up but that's between you and him.

What kind of guards do they have on this place?

[She looks around, frightened. Whispers.] They're serious. This place is backed by the Yakuza.

Japanese mafia. Oh man.

Yes thank you Paco, don't know where we'd be without your contributions.

How many and what kind of firepower?

There's a guy on the door - Charlie - he sells the passes to get in. He's not tough. Blind in one eye. There's another five or so wandering around. Two of 'em are bad news - covered in magic symbols. Mean.



Coyote continues having the best attitude, though her risk assessment skills seem questionable considering how things ended up for her last time.

Any chipheads inside the lab?

Yep. All day. All night. And they can be dangerous too. Once someone's chipped, they can send 'em any program they want. Make 'em do whatever. Turn 'em into whores. Killers. Anything.

We're looking for a kid named Gino. Know him?

Who doesn't? He's here all the time. Gino's a clocker - trades his time for chips - like their little errand boy. I saw him go in there this morning. Hasn't come out, so I imagine he's riding a dreamchip.

That's all we can get outta her, so we head down the hallway.



Jamal is hanging out in the small room to the side and it's possible to buy a door pass from him at a discount, but since we won't need him for that and he has nothing else to say we can safely ignore him. We'll talk to Charlie here instead.



Charisma check of 4.

I want to take a look around first. If the selection's good, we'll give you 200‎¥‎ on our way out.

[His good eye twitches as he thinks.] Yeah, sure that math works for me. See you on the way out.

Our other alternatives were paying 150 (100 to Jamal) for a pass, intimidating Charlie with a Strength check of 4 or sucker punching him in his blind eye which, while funny, just deals 4 AP damage to him and immediately raises a ruckus.



Couple more armed guys on the other side of the door, they would've joined in on the fight had we gone in with violence.



As the man said, past the room is a small bridge and past that, a large doorway...



...leading to an even larger room populated by a whole buncha people.



[The shotgun-wielding thug squeaks in panic.]

It's the crew that took out Stevie J's place. I told you it was only a matter of time!

Yay, we're becoming famous! Can't wait until someone orders a hit on us, that's when you know you've really made it.



Amazon, don't attack any of the chip-heads! They don't know what they're doing, and you could hurt Gino.

No civilian casualties. Got it.

I have a concussion grenade. Better than fragging the tweakers if they get caught in the middle.







So yeah, there's a twist to this fight in the form of unarmed but berserked civilians, 3 of them in total. While their punches aren't particularly dangerous, stray grenades and such will quickly turn them into mincemeat. Not letting them die is merely an optional objective though.

The Yakuza decker controlling them is at the computer towards the back of the room. While he won't be fighting back due to being busy playing the puppet master, he does have a relatively hefty 40 health which combined with the distance can make it tricky to bring him down fast. That being said, there's a potentially easier method available to us.



You'll notice a pair of new icons to the left and top-left. These signify jack-in points deckers equipped with a cyberdeck can use to access the Matrix, which can be done even during battles. The one closer to us is only guarded by a single unarmed BTL operator, so let's see if we can make use of it.



The first turn is spent getting into position, with everyone getting into cover on the left side of the room near the aforementioned jack-in point.

I don't know if "jack-in point" is the official term but I've nothing better so we'll go with that.



The BTL operator gets a free shot at us since the movement ate everyone's AP, but her punches are barely noticeable. As a random fact, unarmed base damage is equal to the character's Strength.



The security guy nearby goes for a shotgun blast on Coyote, but misses. The mind-controlled civilians appear confused by our maneuver and mostly shuffle around where they were.



Jacking into the Matrix requires 1 AP and renders the character unable to act for the duration. It also disables all drones since our consciousness is busy elsewhere.



Before entering, we can adjust our programs and ESPs. Nothing new here.



The jack-in process takes one turn, and in the meantime Paco draws a few gallons of first blood with a double crit on the pesky operator. I don't remember if I've mentioned it but SMGs always fire two shots even without abilities.



Coyote shows off the shotgun's AP-damaging Kneecap ability that Sam never got around to using. Both her and Paco spend the rest of the turn taking shots at the guy but he doesn't go down yet, though his retaliation attempt afterwards fails as well.



One of the chipheads tries to beat up the inactive Murphy. No cyberbullying! :mad:



Another good reason to head for the left side of the room at the start is this pair whose outfits make me think we interrupted their LARP session or something. One of them is a shaman and they run in from one of the rooms to the right, so if we had hunkered down at the doorway we might now be flanked with the people we're trying to save in the middle of everything.




(Poor Matrix doesn't even get a unique theme, though this is the first time the (kinda lame) combat portion of the track plays as well.)




Welcome to cyberspace! It's... not super different from the real world, to be honest. The mechanics remain largely the same except with different values and abilities compared to real combat, and there's also an alarm state which ticks up over time and brings a real mess on your head should it ever hit maximum. It's usually not a huge concern though.

We start from the top left and our goal is to the bottom right, guarded by the red avatar of the Yakuza decker.



As we approach him, while sticking to cybercover of course, two White ICs pop up nearby. These Intrusion Countermeasures are what we'll be fighting most of the time while in the Matrix, and they come in different varieties which fight in different ways. White ICs have melee attacks and 100 IP (health) which makes them only a minor threat most of the time. For reference, the enemy decker has 150 and we have 175 IP, but our offensive power is also far higher than these things'.



Demonstration of Blaster, our AoE damage program. Blaster is probably the most useful of the programs as it's quite accurate and you're usually fighting several enemies in relatively close quarters, but it does require one turn to recharge. Programs deal flat damage, and 50 is enough to knock the ICs to half health right off the bat.



Our cyberdeck gives us 3 AP to work with, so we finish the other IC off with Killer which is a high-damage attack Program that targets a single enemy and is usable once per turn.



Another advantage to having the player character be your decker is that they'll easily get very good at it. We handily beat both the remaining IC and the decker on the next turn without even a cyberscratch on our cyberskin which opens up our goal.

It's worth mentioning that for every turn that passes in the real world, three turns take place in the Matrix. The actual fight has not progressed during this time.



The exact effect of reaching the goal in the Matrix varies depending on the situation. In this case the three choices we get are identical to the three we would've gotten had we first offed the Yakuza decker in the real world and then interacted with the computer next to him. Doing it this way is almost certainly faster and safer however, as only two "real" turns have passed so far and we didn't need to charge through the room to get it done.







Ending the Puppet BTLs forcibly causes all the controlled civilians to take minor damage, the Decking check leaves them unharmed.



We're still outnumbered IRL, but the security guy is almost dead and while the decker is still standing, the dump shock he suffered due to being forcibly ejected from the Matrix by Amazon caused him to take heavy damage to both his HP and AP.





Paco lightly scratches the wounded punk to death while Coyote goes for the Mage next to him. She misses her other shot and fails to finish him off, though.





Mages :argh:



Grenades :argh:

If you're going to lose a civilian in this fight, it's most likely to this.



The katana shaman does shaman things and conjures up an air spirit...



...but now Amazon and thus her drones are back in business and Hello World's concussion grenade crits and stuns her. This causes her buddy to immediately vanish into thin (thinner?) air as well.



Not that it really matters because Murphy and Paco murder her with bullets the very same turn. What Paco lacks in plot relevance he makes up for with a very impressive K/D ratio.



The enemy turn is fairly uneventful aside from the mage showing off his barrel-merging trick in the corner.



Coyote puts her new and improved shotgun skills to good use, sending the enemy decker to the great database in the sky. Having run out of ammo, she follows it up with a pistol shot at the mage.



Paco seals the deal after. You can't truly say you love someone until you've shot at least one person together.



The drone duo wrap things up by taking out the grenade-happy bodyguard with some lucky hits.



After the smoke clears, we find Gino in the back of the room. We also get a Karma point for saving everyone else. Yay?



Wha? - what... the hell. Who slotted me out? Who fragging slotted me out?

[Coyote is shaking. She looks horrified.]

Gino, it's me. It's Carla.



Gino, no.

Coyote, be careful.



Back off! Just back the hell off!

Well this situation sure got volatile quickly. There are a couple of different ways this scenario can play out depending entirely on what we say.

Take it easy, Gino. We're backing off.

[He presses his hands to the sides of his head, his finger still on the trigger. Squints.] What the hell is wrong with you people?

We're trying to help you.



There are drugs that can help you, Gino. We can go slow.

[He looks at Coyote. Looks at you.] We'll... we'll... go slow.





:unsmith: Maybe sometimes things do work out in the end. Sometimes.

Let's get the hell outta here. See you next time.





Extra

When Gino is freaking out, you're given a set of three different dialogue choices, and another three if you tell him you'll back off the first time around. The only way to get the good ending to this quest is to pick the exact ones we did. Both times the other two choices basically boil down to asking him to either drop the gun or sternly telling him to face reality.

Going for the former:

Back off! Just back the hell off!

Drop the gun, Gino.



Gino, no!

Gino takes a shot at Coyote but misses, and Coyote shoots him.

I'm sorry, Carla. I'm so, so sorry.

[Coyote looks to you, tears in her eyes.]

He was beyond help, Coyote. I'm sorry, but he's at rest now.

Yep, nothing we coulda done at all. It was all doomed from the start, that's just how life is sometimes.



Every. Mother-fragging. One.



Here's what would've happened if we had tried to be stern:

You're brain-burnt, kid. You've got to get off the chips. Now.

[He presses his hands to the sides of his head, his finger still on the trigger. Squints.] I... no. I gotta slot back in. Get away from this drek.

We get a different set of three choices here, but the outcome is the same regardless.

Look at yourself, Gino. It isn't better than life. It's sucking your life. You're wasting away.

No. What? Wasting? I...

[He looks around at the squalor of the room, then glimpses his own reflection in the machinery.]





From there the conversation is identical to before. Minus us telling Coyote she had no choice but to shoot him, obviously.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Dec 6, 2017

TheMcD
May 4, 2013

Monaca / Subject N 2024
---------
Despair will never let you down.
Malice will never disappoint you.

Huh, I don't think I ever had Gino not die in that conversation.

Does that actually *do* something - like, give you an extra point of Karma? I know not having any civilian casualties gives you extra Karma (because I got screwed out of it in one run where a long-range shotgun blast and botched grenade from enemies took out one of them without me being able to do anything about it, which ticked me off a bit).

Kanfy
Jan 9, 2012

Just gotta keep walking down that road.

TheMcD posted:

Huh, I don't think I ever had Gino not die in that conversation.

Does that actually *do* something - like, give you an extra point of Karma? I know not having any civilian casualties gives you extra Karma (because I got screwed out of it in one run where a long-range shotgun blast and botched grenade from enemies took out one of them without me being able to do anything about it, which ticked me off a bit).

At least to my knowledge it makes no difference beyond dictating whether the mission ends on a positive or a negative note. I guess it's possible the whole mission was a later addition since it's optional and pops up a little out of nowhere in the middle of the investigation, making it feel a little detached from everything.

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?
Count me among the people who didn't even know it was possible to talk him down.

Keeshhound
Jan 14, 2010

Mad Duck Swagger
Wouldn't the smarter thing be to restrain him (gently) before dumping him out of whatever dream world he was chasing the dragon in? I mean, I don't see how he was ever going to react well to getting cut off.

Cthulhu Dreams
Dec 11, 2010

If I pretend to be Cthulhu no one will know I'm a baseball robot.
Or at least take his gun off him

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Kanfy posted:

I don't know if "jack-in point" is the official term but I've nothing better so we'll go with that.

Jackpoint.

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?
I am equal parts impressed and angry.

Odysseus S. Grant
Oct 12, 2011

Cats is the oldest and strongest emotion
of mankind

Can you vote a post 5?

GoneRampant
Aug 19, 2016

by FactsAreUseless
I knew you could save Gino, but only because I specifically looked it up after my second playthrough. AFAIK, we'll get some different dialogue with Coyote and that'll be it.

tadashi
Feb 20, 2006


:golfclap:
Yeah, this was the first thing I thought of when I saw "vomit on..."

Bonus: gives a different meaning to the alternative ending the scenario: "...you only get one shot... don't miss your chance..."

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006
BTLs: a drug so nice that step one of detox is getting you a heroin habit.

OAquinas
Jan 27, 2008

Biden has sat immobile on the Iron Throne of America. He is the Master of Malarkey by the will of the gods, and master of a million votes by the might of his inexhaustible calamari.
What I found interesting is the way Hong Kong presents BTLs. Bit more nuance there--plus an actual decision besides "smash bad thing."

Keeshhound
Jan 14, 2010

Mad Duck Swagger

OAquinas posted:

What I found interesting is the way Hong Kong presents BTLs. Bit more nuance there--plus an actual decision besides "smash bad thing."

Well, those were perscription.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

If you thought BTL addiction was horrible, try understanding the rules for it in the latest edition. :shepicide:

Keeshhound posted:

Well, those were perscription.
It's all beautiful.

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Poil posted:

If you thought BTL addiction was horrible, try understanding the rules for it in the latest edition. :shepicide:
Try understanding the rules for anything in tabletop Shadowrun.

SIGSEGV
Nov 4, 2010


Poil posted:

If you thought BTL addiction was horrible, try understanding the rules for it in the latest edition. :shepicide:

It's pretty easy! Throw a bucket of d6 over the table and see which charsheets went with the flow to the floor, the characters involved got fried.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

OAquinas posted:

What I found interesting is the way Hong Kong presents BTLs. Bit more nuance there--plus an actual decision besides "smash bad thing."

As in any very thinly disguised drug metaphor (with a side of being a metaphor of escapist fantasy) you've got grades of this stuff. Your high-grade, responsibly-programmed stuff is still going to hopelessly addict you, but you'll be mostly functional to keep buying. Our buddy in Hong Kong has a supplier with an eye for the long term!

These idiots we've just met are the equivalent of a bunch of tweakers putting together a meth lab in a shed out back. Their product is cheap, awful, ludicrously potent, and going to kill you very, very quickly.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

PMush Perfect posted:

Try understanding the rules for anything in tabletop Shadowrun.
How hard is it to make sense of them? https://www.reddit.com/r/gametales/comments/1nbjhe/xpostshadowrun_everyone_is_dead_san_francisco_is/ :v:

OAquinas
Jan 27, 2008

Biden has sat immobile on the Iron Throne of America. He is the Master of Malarkey by the will of the gods, and master of a million votes by the might of his inexhaustible calamari.

Uh.



uhhhh....


"oops"

Truly, a victim of his own success :v:

Keeshhound
Jan 14, 2010

Mad Duck Swagger
It's not a successful run unless something is on fire.

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012
Probation
Can't post for 5 hours!
"Well, at least we got the bad guys"
"Which ones?"
"All of them?"

GhostStalker
Mar 26, 2010

Guys, find a woman who looks at you the way GhostStalker looks at every bald, obese, single 58 year old accountant from Tulsa who managed to win $4,000 by not wagering on a Final Jeopardy triple stumper.

OAquinas posted:

What I found interesting is the way Hong Kong presents BTLs. Bit more nuance there--plus an actual decision besides "smash bad thing."

Ze Pollack posted:

As in any very thinly disguised drug metaphor (with a side of being a metaphor of escapist fantasy) you've got grades of this stuff. Your high-grade, responsibly-programmed stuff is still going to hopelessly addict you, but you'll be mostly functional to keep buying. Our buddy in Hong Kong has a supplier with an eye for the long term!

These idiots we've just met are the equivalent of a bunch of tweakers putting together a meth lab in a shed out back. Their product is cheap, awful, ludicrously potent, and going to kill you very, very quickly.

I forget what the BTL subplot in Hong Kong was at the moment (unless you're talking about the thing regarding your character's foster father and how his mom was attempting to control him using them) but I do remember that the lore mentions that one of the main sources of income for some HK triads are BTLs specifically known as Kong Chips, which are cheap, low quality product turned out quickly and with little of the safeguards that normally come with regular simsense, and then shipped across the world. There are also CalHots, BTLs made in the California Free State (I wanna say the San Fran area?), which are simsense chips that are just on the far side of legal, with safeties just over the edge, which seems to be one of the major high end versions of the product.

And I remember there's a BTL addict minor character in the hub area of Dragonfall, whose story turns out to be pretty drat sad once you're able to get her talking.

GhostStalker fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jun 6, 2017

Manic_Misanthrope
Jul 1, 2010


GhostStalker posted:

I forget what the BTL subplot in Hong Kong was at the moment (unless you're talking about the thing regarding your character's foster father and how his mom was attempting to control him using them) but I do remember that the lore mentions that one of the main sources of income for some HK triads are BTLs specifically known as Kong Chips, which are cheap, low quality product turned out quickly and with little of the safeguards that normally come with regular simsense, and then shipped across the world. There are also CalHots, BTLs made in the California Free State (I wanna say the San Fran area?), which are simsense chips that are just on the far side of legal, with safeties just over the edge, which seems to be one of the major high end versions of the product.

And I remember there's a BTL addict minor character in the hub area of Dragonfall, whose story turns out to be pretty drat sad once you're able to get her talking.

Reliable Matthew Who has them prescribed by the closest thing the hub has to a proper doctor.

GhostStalker
Mar 26, 2010

Guys, find a woman who looks at you the way GhostStalker looks at every bald, obese, single 58 year old accountant from Tulsa who managed to win $4,000 by not wagering on a Final Jeopardy triple stumper.

Manic_Misanthrope posted:

Reliable Matthew Who has them prescribed by the closest thing the hub has to a proper doctor.

Right, forgot about that guy since I almost never bought from the dude.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
So can you attack other characters through the matrix, or only ones that are actively jacked in and trying to mess with you?

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Only people who are jacked in. Which, in this game, never corresponds to someone physically present in the fight.
Sometimes there are control points for industrial machinery etc that allows you to do stuff to people in the physical world.

(In later editions you can use wireless connectivity to gently caress up people's weapons and cyberware)

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012
Probation
Can't post for 5 hours!
Oh yeah, its kind of easy to slip past, but that enemy decker in the last update? Literally the only one in the entire series that you can murder in real life to clear out the web. Any other time enemy hackers appear they're logging in from elsewhere.

GhostStalker
Mar 26, 2010

Guys, find a woman who looks at you the way GhostStalker looks at every bald, obese, single 58 year old accountant from Tulsa who managed to win $4,000 by not wagering on a Final Jeopardy triple stumper.

The Lone Badger posted:

(In later editions you can use wireless connectivity to gently caress up people's weapons and cyberware)

Not in these Shadowrun games here though, since they take place in the 2050s, roughly 2nd Edition, and the whole wireless revolution didn't come to the Sixth World of tabletop Shadowrun until the 2070s, in 4th Ed as part of the rebuilt Matrix 2.0 after the Second Matrix Crash (homocidal AI plus minions tried to take advantage of a Megacorp's IPO and use the upgraded bandwidth of the East Cost Stock Exchange, moved to Boston after the 2005 Manhattan earthquake that eventually turned the island into more of a corporate playground than it is now after they ponied up the funds to buy Manhattan outright and rebuild it in their image when the Feds didn't have the money to do so, to try and turn itself into a god in the machine only to be defeated by a friendly AI and runners, along with coincidentally timed EMP bombs placed at numerous Matrix mainframe systems across the world by a Viking Luddite apocalyptic cult took down the Wired Matrix). Prior to that, it's all hard wired connections to the Matrix and plugging in and all that old cyberpunk stuff.

Mechanically, it was done to give hackers (rebranded once again from deckers, since now they didn't need physical decks to do their stuff, just their new wireless comlinks) more opportunities to do stuff in combat besides being comatose with other runners protecting their body as they did their thing in the Matrix, and not requiring a couple times per game session when it was just the decker and the GM doing rolls and stuff by themselves with regards to Matrix things while everyone else just sat around waiting for them to finish. Worked out ok, but the rules were convoluted as hell, not old Matrix rules were much clearer.

Only played a couple games of 4th Ed, but never as a hacker. None of my friends really wanted to play one either or played it poorly, unaware of the more weird stuff they could do with regards to the fact that now everything was connected wirelessly and could be hacked, including weapons and ware, so we mostly relied on GMPCs as hackers and they never did any of the crazy stuff either, probably because the GM was unaware it was possible as well. Some of the stories and games I've read about here, though, show off those possibilities quite a bit.

FoolyCharged posted:

Oh yeah, its kind of easy to slip past, but that enemy decker in the last update? Literally the only one in the entire series that you can murder in real life to clear out the web. Any other time enemy hackers appear they're logging in from elsewhere.

I seem to remember a mission where enemies in the Matrix were present in combat in either Dragonfall or Hong Kong, but I may be misremembering. I think I am, since the one in Dragonfall should've involved a character you met on a different floor of the mission trying to stop you in the Matrix from doing something and constantly re-jacking back in and spawning a new avatar a couple turns later whenever you dumped him out by killing his current one, IIRC.

There's also a couple of missions in the later games (one from Hong Kong specifically springs to mind) where either you or a hacker teammate or both have to do a thing in the Matrix within a time limit while waves of enemies spawn from elevators and try to kill your meat body. You have other teammates there to protect you, and the jackpoint is in quite a defensive location with chokepoints leading to it and is a decent distance from the elevators, but it's still pretty nerve wracking trying to get it done in time while also protecting the one or ones doing it.

But then again, HBS completely redesigned the Matrix for the other two games (or was that just Hong Kong?), so there's that too.

GhostStalker fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Jun 8, 2017

Bushmeister
Nov 27, 2007
Son Of Northern Frostbitten Wintermoon

GhostStalker posted:

But then again, HBS completely redesigned the Matrix for the other two games (or was that just Hong Kong?), so there's that too.

The Big change was in Dragonfall or Dragonfall: Director's Cut, and then they tweaked some subsystems/elements in HK IIRC

mauman
Jul 30, 2014

Whoever's got the biggest whiskers does the talking.

Bushmeister posted:

The Big change was in Dragonfall or Dragonfall: Director's Cut, and then they tweaked some subsystems/elements in HK IIRC

Uh....what?

The revamped matrix wasn't till HK. Dragonfall (and the DC for that matter) used the Returns versions with a few tweaks.

Bushmeister
Nov 27, 2007
Son Of Northern Frostbitten Wintermoon

mauman posted:

Uh....what?

The revamped matrix wasn't till HK. Dragonfall (and the DC for that matter) used the Returns versions with a few tweaks.

Really? I could have (and did) sworn otherwise.

Ignore what I said, in that case!

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wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
I was kinda ambivalent on HK Decking, but that was mostly as I was flat out completely abysmal when it came to how you bypassed nodes and security (patrolling IP are -nasty- and hard to avoid) and a Matrix alert is actually dangerous

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