malek77

However, as I read on the subject, the ekranoplans have trouble maintaining the ground-effect that provides them with lift when the surface is rough (one opinion - basing unknown - claimed that sea over 3 B grounds them). The fact is, they were best known for their use in Caspian Sea, which is pretty a calm one.

Speaking as resident assistant/minion/artist...

I believe Joie has higher gravity, 1.3G. This would result in flatter oceans (but powerful currents) and a very dense lower atmosphere (but a thinner upper).

The Ekranoplan that we've been designing is capable of Ground-Effect and fixed wing flight (at reduced efficiency). When I'm done designing engine positions, it'll be able to do a Vectored-Thrust-Hover as well.

We believe Ekranoplanes to be a perfect compromise position given the atmospheric and oceanic conditions, and are assuming two centuries of development in engines. This is a culture with single-stage surface-to-orbit craft, so I'm pretty sure they can make an all-weather Ekranoplane hover if need be. This doesn't necessarily mean it's efficient!

And I'm going to stop there - Comp will get the thread up about the craft, and hopefully tonight I'll be able to lay down some images for you all.

At the end of the day - This Plane is going to be the coolest, most badass go-anywhere do-anything SAR ship we can think up. And it's gonna look awesome.

Then the players would either run away if too many enemies were shooting or would charge in and light them up. Enemy limbs went flying and the players would retreat before reinforcements could arrive.

Sounds like you got the Marine Corp...

Re sprinting/shooting : Athletics rolls for that stuff can slow them down, cause a few to trip over/shoot foot/get off-side and surrounded. But one thing at a time or two things badly is a good, low maths, solution.

Are the Japanese big on primogeniture?

I'd say it entirely suits his story to have killed them, or maybe they were stupid wastrels who died in bike crashes. It's also possible the writer picked the name at random from the credits of their favourite Anime, but I wouldn't know anyone who does that. >_>

I'd think the rifle connection is the main thing, with a hint of WWII Revenge. Given his age, he may have experience the war, but, y'know, it's a good theory. You could have some fun with it, definitely. It would explain where Arasaka's failure-aversion and extreme over-reactions could come from.

How high do you want it to get off the ground?

Assuming Earthly conditions, Ground Effect Aircraft (Ekranoplanes) like to be 12m in altitude. Hover-craft, of the rubber-skirt variety, have only inches of altitude.

Unless...we're talking about very high-power fans, that make it fly like a boxed in helicopter. You may have a choice of options there - low power 12" altitude for cruising flat hard surfaces, mid power 12m for crusing over water (so you don't get that weird sucking effect and go down) or high-altitude high power drain flight for low altitude flight, ~ 500m.

For reference : Russian Sea-Copter...accident. :S

G-Force...

Micro-Gravity Combat Operator? LEO-Sec? 102 Spaceborne Infantry?

Orbital Operations Contractor (COO), Orbital Ops Detachment (OOD), Orbital Assault, Orbi-Sec, Black-Sky Force, Militarised Extra Vehicular Operations, Space-mobile Operations Group (SMOG?)...

Any of them work?

It is with profound regret that I'm stating Babilon is, in effect, dead.

Barring the last scene (which I'll explain in a moment), it was great fun. I was very impressed with the results and flow of the game, which is a direct result of your participation, for which I thank-you.

Learnings :

1. Dashing from Decision-Point to Decision-Point isn't railroading, it's just sensible.

2. Say 'yes'. With consequences. If players want a rocket launcher, why not? They're common enough in RL - it's the consequences that 'moderate' their use.

3. Tagged Zones work for tactical PBP games.

In part, it is the usual assortment of 'life' curveballs that have distracted me, but more significantly, I've learnt something.

That raid on Lima's house.

I spent a fortnight with that, living every slow-motion detail of it, in my subconscious, watching the Team get shredded, the Red Team eviscerated, and a Family traumatized.

I am now very sure of where Babilon comes from.

It is the distilled essence of everything that terrifies me about Reality.

It is the utter poverty of spirit, criminalisation of life, the cheapness of destruction. Just how easy it is to destroy someone, permanently. And then I was going to rub salt in my own wound, by bringing back characters from the road-side incident as partial cyborgs, as they descend into survival-over-humanity, and the soullessness of Sophia crushing a farming community into company compliance.

In retrospect, that Gangster that capped himself was me breaking. I couldn't stare at it any longer. It was, still is, scaring me.

So! If you'll pardon me, I'm going to put Babilon back on the shelf till I can look at it again, and the next game I run will probably be surreal, cheerful and have a clear moral compass! Space Pirate Amazons or something.

Thank-you for playing, I hope you got some cool stories out of it.

I've been ogling that for a while...thanks for the recommendation.

I did read (on the site for it) that one of the martial artists is an expert in some special breathing technique designed to allow him to absorb abnormally potent impacts...does that explain any of the back-breaking?

Private arsenal ships in the fight against piracy...

Hmm...

Art dammit : this is an official hand brake post. It seems LAN is not compatible with GM plannings.

Where I'm at : Building the bridge to Italy. Rebuilding Shiny and Murray. Integrate Bundy.

I could just warp us all to Italy, but there's loose ends here...

Any thoughts?

Master_Drow :

//ooc: What am I? Your resident guardian angel?

Yes.

And when you get shot...he's your Guardian Angel.

That ten-sided grim reaper has your scent now...

Some questions and confusion have been raised, and I thought to answer to the side of the story threads, to keep things clean.

//ooc: I'm just going to say I am confused. This guy was payed to kill the Lima family in the house. But when all of his buddies get killed he gets scared and kills himself rather than die by enemy gun fire? And, on top of that he does not even complete the job?

 

OOC- Perhaps. But in this particular setting, failing your bosses is probably worse than being taken by us. Because we're just getting paid a salary for this, so there's only so much ire we could muster up. He and his team just cost his boss (who I am fairly sure is a major badass) a LOT of money. The kind of money you kill people for. Slowly

On the Dot.

Thinking this through in hospital, your characters would realise that Tango-2's suicide deliberately f***ed MohZak's intelligence network in Babilon. Tango-2 'broke.'

To frame his decision...

Had Sophia told you to abduct Lima's family to prevent him talking to MohZak, and to cap them if Lima 'broke'...would you?

...at what point would you tell Sophia to go to hell?

But don't tell me. That would be too easy.

Just thinking today : Emotional Investment.

Combat games generate Emotional Investment by having the player design the character. There's a sense of ownership, and thus, something that is 'risked'.

The players need to have emotional investment in the thing you're trying to build or achieve.

If the game is you telling them they want to build a house/rocket/tank, and they just roll 50xD10 with some narrative, I suspect there will be some sense of ennui.

But if they own the thing they're trying to make - it's their meta-character, you could, in much the usual manner of a gm, string out the successes and failures of trying to build it into a story. And you have their characters to shoot up.

So many strings to pu...uh...the complexity of the plot! Yes! A sophisticated, interwoven plot! A tapestry even!

...now, what might players want to build? Hmm.

Planning stuff. Need to create more maps. Posting cycle is likely to be 'every second day' from here out.

Also note - Tuesdays I'm off drawing, so they're likely to be dead-spots.

Keep rollin'...

Westfield shooting

This kind of thing used to be a rarity...in this case, it's my local shopping centre.

And recently a Brazilian "A lister party animal" was alleged to be stealing biscuits and got Tased to death.

Its all lights and sirens down under at the moment, and the use of Tasers is becoming an issue - they haven't reduced violence, they don't replace the use of lethal force, and most people that get zapped by them are unarmed and not resisting arrest...violently anyway.

Taser death

Not sure what to make of it really.

I'd recently read, and I'm trying to track down sources, that 26% of CIA employees are now contractors and they this 26% constitute 49% of the CIA's personnel budget.

Book, Spies for Hire. Your numbers look right. The triple cost to govt is waste enough, the commercialisation of use-of-force & interrogation techniques is even more alarming. The impact on operational security is horrifying, let alone what would result if competition to hire these services disempowered the legitimate government to the benefit of cashed up, responsibility-lite organisations.

But maybe...it's cheaper long term. No pension or insurance liabilities.

  SEAL's recruiting high school swimmers

 

Plus other manner of jocks. From what I've heard this has been working out for them

At least since the 70s. They get em young and train them hard. They know nothing but school, sport & obedience, and they're freaking terrifying soldiers. You do that to a man, you make damn sure you look after him in peace...

My personal view is that this system is the result of Bush administration cronyism.

It's a process with a long, long history. Bush accelerated it, yes, but don't neglect other times. DynCorp spraying coca plantations in the War on Drugs...it would be an act of war if a company wasn't doing it.

The term that scared me most was 'Cost Plus.'

Contractors had their base operating cost, charge per operation...& could then claim all incidental costs on top. Apparently convoys would run with empty trucks in Iraq just to run up the bill.

:S

Welcome to team Magnet

Bweeeeheheheheehehee...

I was thinking about small two man teams. If we stick with the current team then I would suggest that we split into teams of one active player and one passive/NPC.

I'm resolving the man-power shortage.

Blake is welcome to play as long as he likes, and in game terms, will probably attach to Team Magnet for the foreseeable future. Understaffed unit, reassignment, need help with their fashion sense...he's just what you need!

Also - YAY and Hello for Blake! He is an experienced role-player with many years experience, and quite the master of English. He survived the live Babilon games, and has a good sense of the universe already.

We're just going to to a bit of renovation on his character sheet, and he'll be fully operational.

@ Blake : This is the 'anything goes' thread - if you need massed tactical advice and don't want to clutter the story thread, this is the place for it. Also, you might want to start at the top with answering those first questions...

Concerning the cyber arm, I'm thinking something akin to an Alienware case - black anodized aluminum with lexan panels showing off the internal workings, with LEDs or other low-key illumination for highlights. None of the illuminated parts will show in long sleeves (ie, under armor). The Picatinny rail will be mounted on the underside, and will feature a link to the arm's battery. Increased strength, even at cost of more bulk or shorter time between charges.

The hand should be standard, at this point, though it would be nice to have threaded holes on the knuckles to allow for future accessories (taser contacts, short spikes, or just decorative bling) to be easily installed.

Short version, yes.

Longer version - Phill is played by Vis', who is an electrician. If there's a way to make that happen without frying the user, Yes!

I like the electrical discharge idea. Taser style would definitely work, and is probably stealthy enough with the other systems to go unnoticed.

The charging rail is a great idea.

What kind of colour scheme?

Also, you'll need to find a moment in-game to request Phil work on these things.

Now the scenario is just like the video in my OP but instead of insurgents Arasaka has sent one of their A List units with a heavy machine gun and an armored SUV looking for a moment just like this.

You been reading Babilon?

kekekeke

AFAIK - the psychology of combatants is that they Fight not for ideology or money or even to protect home and family...that's incidental justification. The actual decision to go into harms way is based on trust in the immediate superiors.

If your Team Leader/Captain/Imam is confident, collaborative, and competent, the 'men' will gel.

Getting serious dedicated fighters to your cause in the first place is done by all the ideology/home/family stuff. Hezbollah fronts the cash to rebuild homes after a fight with Israel. Hezbollah has dedicated enough fighters to own the country, without actually taking out the existing 'government'.

If Arasaka...

wait, is that cyberpsychosis already peeking in?

Would I send you crazy?

I also want a Picatinny rail - the weapon mounting platform that's pro-ADHD.

Pro Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder? O_o ???

I'm assuming there's another meaning for that acronym I've not heard before.

Then again, hyperactive militarised cyborgs would be entertaining...

So, questions about cybernetics. I haven't been in any of your previous games, so bear with me.

No worries.

Questions are good!

1. Are these cyberpunk-canon strength and speed - ie, punch through bricks, strong enough to tear themselves from the frail human body if abused? Or are they more along the lines of slightly improved current cutting edge prosthetics - twitchy and useless for fine manipulation, but adequate for combat, climbing ladders, and normal day-to-day living?

Because of DNI, they are very precise. Contemporary commercial models replace lost functionality very well, have good sense feed back and good range of motion. Trans-dermal sockets are all the rage, meaning the limbs connect to bones, rather than strapping on.

They are human equivalent - for Commercial Standard, you stats won't change, it's just some of your bits have a battery-life and can turn pain off.

If you start modding them though...

2. If battery life is limited to 12 hours of regular use even with the high end medical device batteries, can a person carry spare batteries, or plug into an L-Five while driving in order to recharge?

Both.

Also - 12 hours *labour*. Imagine you were digging trenches and filling sandbags. Medi-grade gives you 12 hours.

In short, I'm scoping 'combat expectations' - civvie life probably doesn't notably have limits.

3. How well environmentally sealed are cybernetics? Will dust storms and/or swimming harm them? Can they be used in hazardous environments (ie, flammable gases) without risk of sparks?

Well sealed, non sparking, swim-safe, can handle grit (but doesn't like it).

Myomar is a rubbery weave that contracts when electrified, it produces no sparks. There are no brush motors inside, and heat buildup is a minimal issue.

(On a hot day in the desert, your arm may feel sloppy. A cold day it might work stiffly. Much like the real thing...)

4. Cyberweapons!

Can I discharge those expensive batteries via fingertips for electrical damage to targets (living or electronic)?

How much damage does a cyberhand do for punching or crushing, and do martial arts bunuses apply?

If other cyberweapons are available, which ones are they, and what sort of social reactions should I expect if I whip out my new cyber(insert weapon name here) in front of witnesses?

Cyberweapons? Why would an amputee want weapons?

The poor innocent who has lost their limb wouldn't be thinking such things...

...what do you want? Ask Phil.

If you want weapons, they'll be bespoke designs from Phil's underground lab, made to order and highly experimental.

The reactions if you pop something in front of witnesses? Hysterical fear. Like opening your trenchcoat to reveal a vest of C4. It's frontier stuff, and only the CIA & the Kremlin is really thinking about it as a security risk at the moment.

Cyber Limbs can ignore pain and are harder to break than flesh. They're also heavy. I'll say an extra D6 in MA of damage at this point.

5. Social reactions - do cybernetics get the same kind of queasy acceptance that prosthetics do today, or are they largely ignored? Do people chrome them, and/or is that simply a low class kind of thug bling? Is Realskinn™ available and/or popular? If I get on a commercial (non-OMA) airplane, will cyberlimbs get me different treatment?

Queasy acceptance.

The 'Terminator' look is popular now for real, it continues to be so in future. Chrome, case-mod style neon 'lacing' in the myomar, cooling fans to stop stumps sweating, big company logos. The culture around it is new, overt and industrial - the people with Cyber are 'owning' the reality of the change by aggressive display. They don't hide. They flaunt. It's part of their story, but it's still creepy.

Realskinn™ exists, but it looks waxy. The subsurface scattering is still hideously unnatural.

Airlines haven't twigged to the full threat yet, but they're already looking so hard for weapons they WILL give the limb a good study, expecting it to be a bomb.

Psychologists are having a field day studying the impacts. Cyberpsychology is The Field to be in. You'll get on TV to talk about it, long term impacts are just coming into view, it's got a 'warm & fuzzy' helping injured people aspect to it.

What they're saying is that humans can adapt to cyber, and carry on, and this is a great example of Technology Doing Good, helping our war wounded and keeping the Willing able to Work.

What they're discovering is that memory is distributed throughout the entire body's nervous system, and limb loss can alter personality.

What they fear is artists like Stelarc, mucking around with wiring in third hands and doing weird stuff. This is considered medically unethical, and is illegal in the USA and EU, as it is classed as a form of Body Dysmorphia and wanting it is psycho-pathologised as a condition, for which they will give you pills.

Curiously, you are not working in the USA.

So Malek, you have mentioned before that cyberware took a lot of batteries to run. I'm guessing an 8 hour charge under standard work load? And probably not as responsive as a normal human limb so a reduced REF? But probably more resistant to damage than normal human limbs?

No Ref penalties! Limbs are using myomar and can be faster than their bio originals - its a matter of how fast your nervous system delivers instructions.

They use D cells - the cells you get at a servo will give you 6 hours labour, the proper Medical grade ones give you 12 hours labour. You can sit still or power down to conserve.

Do I detect GM intervention? Praise the lord!

(Or are you running this game at the same time elsewhere? If so I would love to compare how we are doing!)

I first ran Babilon a few years ago, live game. Visereal was there for a few ops, as Phill. Jarrett, Bundy & Bowen were their characters. Mahmud was a farmer who saved their butts during a particularly ferocious opening battle - a desalination plant near Alexandria, Egypt, was hit by a forty man kill squad in technicals. Local security didn't have much manpower, but they did have an APC...but to get to it took some effort due to leg injuries.

Jarrett, the sniper, had his first near death experience here when a fire-storm of AK fire found his position.

He rolled under Luck, took the -1, and lived.

His second near death experience involved trying to set up an over watch position in a hotel that already had one of MohZak's teams in it. After a catastrophically failed attempt at politely walking past the Lookout to his booked room, there was a fight. First the Red team tried to clear the corridor, and tore out the structural brickwork at the end of the corridor with massed AR fire. They then pushed. Jarrett was shot in the jaw at point blank with a Llama Commanche.

Then Bowen, Bundy & Mahmud tried to save their team-mate by suppressing that floor of the hotel.

This destroyed the facade. 3 x FAMAS with GLs is great for redecorating.

Jarrett survived his next luck roll, and the Doctors put him back together.

That's how he got his jaw, & his dodgy cyber-ear.

And that's how I almost cut a Hotel in half with my full auto rules tricks.

I hope you'll work in Buddy teams, because we've just taken the first step on the Escalation J curve.

Okay.

Y'all can see just how spectacular that was. There's gibs everywhere.

If you have tactical questions, let's have 'em...we'll clean this op up in a post or two.

Do not despair of the Game! I've been brainstorming on this for a week since the Holy Oracular Dice of Malek spoke their dark designs.

I've got a new plan, which will serve to communicate the world and its technological advances very clearly.

Yes, this means Cyber. Limited, but First Gen "Human Equivalent" bionic prosthetics are in your near futures.

So yes, there will be hospital, but not too much of it. I'm going to fast-forward the "Nurses sponge bath you and change your stump" bit.

What I am going to hammer in the short-term is how to make basic squad tactics work in game.

I want to see a Buddy system of bounding over-watch, where one player is posting for the benefit of the next. We'll figure out exactly how soon, but I'm figuring on using in-game VR Games.

In the meantime, don't feel to bad.

None of you died.

Which is a better outcome than the live game...

Letting you know where things are at :

The Dice Have Spoken.

I just have to novelize it, and it's a waaaay bigger job than it looks just now, as it requires a huge stack of new material to be created.

It's coming. And there's going to be lots more maps.

Lots.

Random inspirations I've not used yet :

The streets are always clean, the Scav bot herders eat it all up. Bins are the piggy bank now.

Dreaming of a balcony overlooking the huge scree-plane favela at night, it grows in layers of a day when I'm not there. I leave buckets of silica-glittering sand for the facade to feed on. It catches my dreaming with spider-fine antennae.

She looks gorgeous tonight in the fuchsia pink cera-plating. We tool around the Flats in the racer frame, then decide to cruise bayside. The squishies pour out after us, flashing and stinging. We laugh and run to the rocky plain where the squishie's wheels pop and they think to go on foot. I add a few flashers bars to a vambrace for her. She had a surprise too. A ploughing claw, like the one I lost.

They put Fences around each Zone, made up zones that still somehow made us fragment into arguing tribes. I tried to keep current with old friends in Z27, but they got weird and militant. Then their gates got 'sealed.' I wonder how they've diverged now.

He was a sad thing. It had cost billions to make a single man cancer proof, all that that time and effort. He put a brave face on, but you could see his jangled nerves. He didn't enjoy being an exhibit of a class A Baseline. I think he wanted the full conversion but his creators, his Corporate parent, wouldn't let him. "It's just a trick to keep them Wet. Who's gonna keep doing all the red tape and making the Big Men rich if we're all isolate-subsistence capable? Ignore it. It'll pass." that was Jahl's opinion.

"The invaders have no authority here. If they do not subject themselves to Our Founding principles, there can never be peace."

"But - isn't it your own customs that prolong, cause the violence?"

"it is not violence, it is justice. Justice teaches. Violence oppresses."

"So you keep these, to teach?"

"Either the invaders will learn, or they will all be killed. It is not my Will that they should, but..."

...I fondly remember having a Krav Maga arm lock/wrist wrench maneuver demonstrated on me by an exceedingly attractive young lady at a very nice restaurant.

She then put on her black gloves and started talking about Fascism.

I may need more lessons to become competent.

Alright.

We'll cool it, but keep going.

Also - you may note, I updated the Red Team's MG's from RPDs to PKMs.

Acronym typo late at night. Sigh.

Yes, this does make them a threat to the L-Five, but they will have to bash their way through.