ALL THE BRICKS - OOC

[TillForPie]

A rigger interface doesn't impart on a vehicle the ability to drive itself (I'd have to do some reading on the subject if you'd like to implement this in the future - it shouldn't be hard to do as the vehicle is already capable of being controlled remotely. But it's not standard). So there are two ways for you to get it where you want it to go, both involving a Rigger Command Console (RCC) - a briefcase-contained computer system that Lum likely carries everywhere: You can drive it remotely or you can jump in.

In this situation there's not much of a difference between remote control and jumping in. If you jump in you'll get more initiative and potentially a +1 bonus (if you go hot-sim as opposed to cold-sim, which just refers to how much of your brain is connecting to the vehicle - you can pick. Hot-sim means a +1 bonus and even more initiative but you'll take more biofeedback damage if you crash).

So question one is: Remote controlling or jumping in?

Question two is: Which station are you driving the van to?

The train will pass the next station during round 4. But the train is going very fast - if Death Otter wants the runners to be able to disembark she'll want to start the emergency brakes sometime during THIS round. If she starts braking the train it won't arrive at the station until round 5. This will mean stopping at least the entire back half of the train, by the way. The front half with the NYS Transit employees can continue merrily along but the back three cars will have to stop with the runners' car to avoid slamming into it. There's an opportunity to change tracks (and thus separate the cars onto different routes) just after each station.

The station after that won't be up until round 9. Again, Death Otter will want to start the brakes during round 7 at the latest, which will push arrival back to round 10.

Even with emergency brakes being applied as early as I'm mentioning here it'll still be a very rough stop. If Death Otter wants to stop the train without using the emergency brakes it will take a lot longer to slow down and it'll push back arrival to either station by quite a bit.

You and Shayuri can feel free to discuss where you'd like to stop in the OOC thread. For now, just let me know how you're controlling the van and initiative can move on. We'll say that the next station would have been the likely pre-planned exit point (before knowing just how badly things were going to turn out) and that's the one the van is closer to. But the first station is on the way to the second so a destination doesn't have to be picked right now.

 

[Shayuri]

My idea right now is to:

1) Slow down the last three cars of the train, to delay the train following us.

2) Change our car onto another track.

3) Shut off all the sensors on our car so they can't easily tell where it stops.

4) Stop us at a station on the new track.

Actions of the spider and possible flubbed rolls may force D0 to drop portions of this skeleton plan, or think of something else on the fly, of course.

Does any of this sound workable?

 

[TillForPie]

All four of those are doable, it just takes successful spoofs from Otter. Signalling the track change is high priority because if you miss the next station's junction you'll have to wait another four or five rounds for a route switch. It means that it's best if Lum uses remote control with the van for now so that he can keep tabs on what's going on with the train.

And as a final note, as an emergency backup plan it's also possible to stop the train in a tunnel and escape on foot via an access hatch to either maintenance tunnels or the sewer.

 

[Shayuri]

Okay. I'm actually thinking I'll try to spoof the sensors off before we switch tracks. Makes it that much harder to figure out where we went. Sounds like I should have time to do it, as long as I get it on the first try. Somewhere in those actions I'll see if I can't spare a simple action to send a message to the team where we're going. Once D0 even knows herself. Hehe.

Hm, do I need to spoof to change car speeds, or direction? The opening narration made it sound like she'd managed to get some kind of authority to do that, but I'm not sure if that's what you meant, or if you meant she could change speed and direction with appropriate spoofing rolls.

 

[TillForPie]

Yeah, without owner permissions she's always going to need to make the appropriate spoofing rolls.

And another apology to GlassEye: It was while reading through the book just a little earlier I was reminded of GridGuide and the RCC's ability to split noise reduction with autosoft mounting. So everything I said earlier about having to repurchase individual autosofts was wrong. It'll eat into the RCC's ability to reduce noise but you were totally in the clear. And GridGuide is the autopilot that most cars in 2078 use to drive. So you can definitely use the rigger interface to switch on the van's GridGuide and basically have it drive itself. The only downside to that is that it will be very slow.

So I used a complex action for you to remote control the van, but you don't need to keep it up - any round (NOT pass - as with driving a vehicle normally you only need to spend a complex action once per round to keep control of it) you don't use a complex action to drive the vehicle it will revert to GridGuide and continue slowly on its way to your position.

 

[GlassEye]

No need to apologize. I wasn't very clear in my post, mainly because I wasn't sure exactly what was possible and I was trying to cover all my bases in case the action I intended wasn't possible. My intention was to remotely drive the van. It is good to know that I can have it drive itself if needed, though.

As for which station, I think I implied the next station on the line (sorry, haven't gone back and re-read all the post in the IC and OOC yet). If the van is already near there then Lum would drive it in a holding pattern until he can determine/verify with Death Otter where the train is going to end up. Once that is communicated to him then he would move the van to a position to pick us up.

 

[Mosier]

So endeth all who opposeth me!

 

[Shayuri]

Time check. Are the IC coming out next turn, or the turn after? This is pretty important to determining my next actions.

 

[TillForPie]

The Black IC will launch at the start of round five. We are currently at the end of round three.

 

[Shayuri]

Excellent. Thanks!