malek77

February 9, 2002

Um - well, I've used similar things as a sort of game engine to help me write stuff.

I've done a course in java, and I did get a dice thing going. I'll send it to you if you're interested AND I can find it...

I don't know how I'd integrate it into a game, unless you've got a laptop. Which I had going for me, until the screen died...

If you're after digital dice you could try http://home.kooee.com.au/murrell/machLib/roller.htm which has a dice I made in flash. It's possible to do what you're talking about in Flash as well - with text input fields and the works. Long term saved files might be a problem...but the idea is there. Or we could go java...

February 9, 2002

ohmigod I just checked that militech link and I'm having palpitations...

THE END IS NIGH

Goto http://www.gsa-sales.com/militech/mili-pr.htm for their product page. It looks like a Chromebook 0...

February 9, 2002

Baron Samedi's idea of humour somehow does not make me feel safe.

As a matter of fact - that's more than a bit disturbing...and it leads to some interesting ideas.

Get a bunch of techies together to make up realistic looking props to convince people you actually have some kind of magical powers...hm. Might work on the equivalent of Gibson's stringtowners...and it might not. Maybe the bosses daughter.

Now that *would* be interesting...rather than going for big local Corp suit, convince his daughter/son/wife that they're under the control of some Vodun spirit and you have an instant mole.

btw - what's a veve?

February 9, 2002

Yeah. Oz and CP don't seem to go together real well - I live somewhere called 'Abermain', which is near Cessnock. In the other direction is Newcastle...(goto www.whereis.com if you really want to find us - trust me, its no-where!)

This severely limits players. Totally. All anyone wants to do here in our small town is get stoned and drunk. We don't even aim as high as 'laid' - there's nothing much suitable around.

(Not even sheep.)

Our environment is light urban in an ocean of fire prone scrub that's basically wierd spiky plants and sparse trees on top of garbage. It get regularly burnt.

While America in 2020 seems pretty intense - kinda like the depression in the 30's, Oz was fairly apathetic and just went about being dole bludgers or farmers much as we always have.

Nothing happens and anything vaguely military is banned. The chance of getting all that super-malorian-handheld-tank-killer stuff is nill. Sure we like guns - but they tend to be 22's for hunting rabbits.

The big stories in Australia would all have to do with Corporate corruption, boat people and Greenies. Lots've bloody tree hugging greenies. :chain:

Which is why I picked an island out in the pacific and turned it into an arcology to run my cp games in...

Still - if someone's wanting for ideas to put in a rewrite for Australia CP style, I'll chip in - just gimme an email.

February 9, 2002

This is cool...where do you guys get all this info about new guns? Like the thing with the brick of bullets...if its online, stick up a link please!

Yeah. Um - I have a *reasonable* grounding in military history - so I think why not extrapolate the future of milspec hardware by looking at historical trends?

ie: look how much things changed when the machinegun was introduced - we went from lines of men in pretty red coats standing and shooting at each other to wearing khaki and crawling around in mud underneath barbed wire in about 10 years. What had changed? ROF. That's all.

The issue was that to get the ROF, you had to have a stable platform, like a tripod or an armoured car. This favoured defence.

So - what do you want to be winning in 2020 - defence or attack? Tanks are supposed to be obsolete atm, but armour improvements have just kept them going, and will keep them going, well into the 21st century. If you decide to go with the attacker having the advantage, you'd have lots of concentrated power in small weapons. Super LAW, anyone?

If you want the defender to win, tanks get bigger and heavier, war goes like Neon Genesis evangelion with the biggest freaking combat monster winning.

This has interesting implications too - if its hi-powered small arms, the damage potential of small groups is big and they can have an equivalent effect. Like terrorists.

If armour - it takes bigger and bigger platforms to be decisive, and thus it requires more support. The second effect is that influence becomes rarefied - and when that happens, the concept of conquering would again become feasible. Nukes stop that at the moment - but imagine an enormous evangelion style thing, invulnerable to nukes - the only competition would be similar machines - and worldwide there might only be twenty. Thus the brilliance of the engineering and the pilot would become concerns of great historical importance...like back in the days when you could become a king just because you and your 10 mates thought you should be...

I'm on the side of attack, but who knows?

Whatcha think?

February 9, 2002

Yeah Phipps...do tell...

Mine comes from the new Bubblegum Crisis series - of which I have 12hours on tape, beginning to end.

I figured it was the only thing I was sufficiently obsessed with to provide a suitable quote...and it had to come from Nene - the archetypal cute short blonde anime character with the amazing hacking abilities...damn I wish that show was real...

February 9, 2002

Who cares? The worse it gets, the more CP it gets...and that makes me happy! :uzi:

I blame Greenpeace for the ills of the world. Them and their sustainable development will kill us more surely than nukes. They'll want us to stay here on Earth being sustainable and long haired until we develop clean green methods of space travel, and then they'll whinge about terraforming other planets because it means changing other planets to how we want it ( Like the red martians ) and destroying their natural (dead) ecology.

I say - SCREW THAT! Corporate competition will take us to the stars! Join the megacorps! Today the Earth, tomorrow the Universe!

...and no, I'm not whinging and not doing anything. I'm a designer, and I'm doing my part to help by creating desire in people through advertising to promote the growth of the consumer economy, thus adding to corporate power and destroying the ecosphere to force us into space...now where do I sign up as an Orbital Air trooper...

February 8, 2002

Think, thunk, think...ok...

Your runner is attacking, say, a Firewall.

They have their (um) Extinguish program, to fight it.

The Firewall needs:

1) Strength

2) Speed

3) Int of system/sysop running the Firewall

4) d10

VS

1) Extinguish's strength

2) CPU's/Deck speed

3) d10

3) ...Interface skill? Maybe I'm just being a pain, but there aren't that many ways to run a program. You give it an IP and hit go...and being a Rache Bartmos isn't going to make the program more effective. Or does it?

Any rationalisations? Maybe the speed they do it with, like comparing a touch-typer to a hunt & pecker?

February 7, 2002

Maybe the best way to work out how to treat your sockets is to create a pseudo-scientific explanation for them...then you can have reasons why something will/won't work.

I don't think the book details them enough, or cyberware. It would be an enormous field, with as many devotees, opinions and model numbers as cars have.

The idea I generally run with regarding plugs is that via some growth hormone or nanite treatment, 'motor' nerves are cultured to grow in whatever part of you the socket is to be built in. Then the nerves are wired up to the socket...the interesting bit is how you would train the brain to recognise this new sense. Like - a new arm, it can handle. It knows what an arm is and does...but a cybermodem link?

Thus I would tend to treat cyberwear installation as a bit more drastic than just having something built in...you're going to have to train to use it. To compare it to a real life example - how on Earth would you teach someone to wriggle their ears? I can do it, other people can - but I have no idea how to convey the understanding necessary. I think a modem link is going to be rather obscure to train someone with...

But the advantage of making it like a 'new limb' is that you don't replace the effect of natural actions (ie: for a machine link, moving the tractor forward might involve thinking 'walk forward')...you would just have this new bit. Our M-link would be its own seperate thing...you just have to 'learn' it.

Blah. Hope this makes sense.

February 7, 2002

Cool.

February 6, 2002

Cool - nice CV. (I don't understand most of the alphabet soup, but it must be good... )

Ok - firstly for Axel we'll need the plothook. Last time it was the damsel in distress thing...& it works, so I don't see any reason not to do it again...but if we can come up with something else that's appropriate...

...and we'll need a suggestion for a finale. Big gun battle or big cerebral anime uploaded consciousness demigod thing.

We can fill the middle in later.

atm - I'm thinking an AI plot, such as I've been using in some stories I write. Something like...um...damsel in distress is being hunted. Axel investigates - discovers its a setup to catch someone to do consciousness isolation experiments on.

(Which means - get something that's conscious, then cut bits out until you find out what consciousness really is.)

As Axel investigates further, he begins to discover the damsel is actually a gynoid/robo-chick/replicant call girl who became conscious and escaped her unpleasant conditions.

The AI is behind the plot to do the experiment, because its trying to figure out ways to protect itself from deactivation - a subject it's become obsessed with.

Various char's along the way think the big AI at the end of the chain is some kind've voodoo god or big corporate, and its only revealed right at the end.

Whatcha think?

February 6, 2002

Hey! I must disagree with an earlier comment! I in my right mind would *love* to get sculpted as a minotaur...they're so cool. Give him a big double headed golden axe.

This is a cool idea for a club.

Do tell - what's the decor like? All organic? Or given the propensity for exotics to look like african animals, maybe a jungle theme?

Do they have a sculpted in house band? ( I just had this notion of the members having the ability to do augmented bird vocals or make use of other animalistic musical mechanisms.)

February 6, 2002

"...Corporate Strategy Guidance. In todays business environment, only the best informed survive.

Be the best. Be the best informed. "

CSG is like a detective agency specialising in Corporate goings on. There's nothing overtly illegal about their operation, but they regularly fend off charges of insider trading (and come out smelling of roses).

What they do is collect and analyse all the public information about a company - if you really need to know *all* the additives Coke puts in their drinks for Europe, they can get you the list, information on what each component does and where it initially comes from.

Not breathtaking - but practical and fast. And cheaper than training your own agents.( 500eb - 1000eb+ )

The more you want to pay, the more info they can generate. They can calculate current business profit margins of a competitor, trace all of its subsidiary's and basically uncover all the little schemes and programs they run - without upsetting the law. ( 10,000eb - 50,000eb )

If you sell your soul to them they'll do the black ops and intrusion stuff...but you'd better have deep pockets.

The information they get is the best, the most accurate and comes with commercial analysis...this is where the 'strategy guidance' comes in. If you want to knock out a competitor, they'll approach it like a military operation - finding the enemy weaknesses and suggest the most effective way to bring them down. (50,000eb - 200,000eb )

They employ a lot of people from military backgrounds, to get the strategic minds necessary.

CSG has only medium sized offices in a few cities (NC, San Francisco, Kiritimati (my island city!), Bos/Wash & Paris)

The work ethos is unusual - people are organised into 'units', mostly loyal and friendly with one another. The CEO doesn't like infighting, and avoids it at all costs by promoting the 'laser focus' mindset. The people are also allowed to use the company resources for personal gain - if you know that you're going to improve the business standing of XYZ industries, you can use company brokers to buy their shares.

[btw - no-one has managed to 'prove' insider trading, but no-one can prove Arasaka tortures people, either.]

This creates an emotional investment in the well being of the company.

Offices are well appointed and light coloured, utilising relaxing pastels to create a clean brisk atmosphere. Plants and personal items are encouraged - as long as they are tidy. In general, it all works. But nothing's perfect...

Security is a) ambient. All the ex-mil people make for hard targets.

Sternmeyer troops. Good rep (well, in my universe) and it too benefits from their services. Symbiotic.

They are not on the share market - it would make them vulnerable to too many outside pressures.

Common units:

>Financial Intelligence Gathering.

>Product Intelligence. (yes, this means trying the burgers and buying the clothes!)

>Subsidiary/Franchise Intelligence.

>Projection analysis. (Where will XYZ be in 2yrs time?)

>Internal Intelligence. (This is basically about working out private, internal information. This is where Grey ops hangs out. Black ops is normally a team owned outside the company by an employee, and the Manager knows and contracts them into an operation.)

For Corp players:

Hi pressure workplace with high expectations. You'll face external hostility, but good internal support. If you're a team player the bonus' are huge.(Being good with Emp skills is *essential*)

The unit structure is like a cell structure...so different units may be 'attacking' the client of another unit and no-one will ever know.

For Edgerunner teams/Netrunners:

If CSG wants you, it'll be through a Mr.Smith intermediary.

He'll probably spook you at first, being a)security conscious in the extreme, b)very helpful. He'll never screw you over. If he does, expect him dead - soon. CSG won't want his services anymore. If you screw them, you'll end up with huge debts or no public records or everywhere you go the police will be watching you. They won't kill you themselves...

For Fixers:

If you can get well laundered information on time and on budget, they'll be very interested.

CSG is a nice place as CP corporations go, and is finding its niche comfortably uncluttered. They are looking to expand, and their outlook is getting a bit more aggressive. They have their finger in a lot of pies, and command a great deal of power covertly. Their links with numerous Edgerunner teams makes their security mostly of the 'proactive' variety.

They make extensive use of offline computer systems, so they can't be hacked. Security for their online stuff is like mouse-mazes, drawing in the 'runner and not letting them escape.

They make extensive use of sentient AI in co-operation with the human staff.

Play the place as brisk, friendly, but mystifying.

At best they can be considered good guys, a Corp your players can feel morally responsible for protecting.

At worst they are the ultimate arch-enemy super spies, untraceable, unproveable and covered from all angles. If you go after them, you'll find yourself surrounded by moles, spies and the security to worry about won't be the troopers at the door but AI managed tac-teams tailing you around.

Whatcha think?

February 6, 2002

Wanna post some of the rules or problems you came across?

February 6, 2002

A large part of it is my perception of how the net will work...this is the 'functional aspect'...(this is long - be warned)

Ok - to see anything, you need light. In my matrix, light is a ping. A ping is a tiny packet that says '123.456.789>A'.

The number is the IP address to return an 'A' class response to.

There are A to E responses. F is 'find' and is like a search.

'A' returns all public information anyone reading the ping wishes to automatically send out - this can often result in the matrix equivalent of a storm of pop ups, personal ads, a high detail user Icon and a file like our very own 'view profile' button.

E returns basic stuff...like what they're called.

These responses come from anything reading the ping - thus you end up with lots of responses. (This is assuming a hi-bandwidth net, btw).

The time the responses take represents their distance from your avatar/icons position. The pings also get an idea of the time *between* the things in the net...which gives you enough detail to create the triangulated position of everything in relation to each other - I imagine the net would look like a massive protein molecule model gone rogue.

Think of those ball and stick things from science - the ball is the icon of an ISP or Server, public avatars floating about looking at things and wondering if you want to chat, and the sticks represent hard connection between servers much like how the DNS system connects.

The sticks lengthen with the speed of the connection, they widen with traffic, and change colour in keeping with whether they're shrinking or growing. The 'balls' are often designed by web-designers.

When you go to a 'site', an html panel will appear and float in front of you. Full 3D chat rooms you just log into and you're in your VR world thing...

The big difference is combat. Not spectacular at all - kinda like submarine warfare with everyone trying to ping the enemy's deck before they do, so they can 'lock on' and crash them first. Being attacked in the net screws up your view - with static, funny colours, the molecule drops out - or stretches out huge.

You can be killed over the net, but its very, very,very hard.

To stop the runner drooling and squitting themselves while jacked in, I say there's something called a 'biocontrol chip' in your deck which keeps you breathing and prevents bedsores.

If a hostile runner can infiltrate its driver, he can control your breathing and make you thrash around or (evil laugh) make you 'relieve yourself.' Asphyxiation is the most common way to die on the net - but its rare.

The point of biocon is you can choose its setting - one '1' it will kick you off when a hostile pop-up appears. On setting '5' it will calmly ignore you as you choke to death.

This way, legit users aren't in constant fear of their life (they use 1 or 2) and runners can set theirs to compete with the threat level of the run, so they stay on as long as possible.

The greatest danger of running is having a corporate SWAT team dropped on your flat if you're traced...

Blah. End of technical carp.

Now, regarding actual play. I imagine all software would work like Firewall's or a DOS 'tracert 123.45.789' command - ie, they run until they're successful or just keep going. The limitation would be your decks attributes.

What I'm thinking is that your deck would have a CPU number, which doesn't so much represent how many chips you have, but how many prog's you can run simultaneously.

You start the prog, and each turn it rolls for success.

Problem is...it completely negates the use of 'interface' skill. I want to have interface as a skill, cos it makes some sense...but I don't really know what good it would do.

What makes a super hacker different from joe user? Do I improve the netrunner's initiative, improve the 'int' of his software...

pfah. I've run out of blather. Any comments or suggestions would be nice. I'm also open to collaborating, play-testing and being the test subject for ideas...

February 6, 2002

Hey cool! I like the clothes...

Gratuitous flattery over with...how about urban survivalist outfits? Concept being:

Sometime ago some french artist started making these suits that looked like biohazard gear in bright colours. Fully sealed outfits with big masks. Then s/he started turning them into like a wearable tent, that you could fold out when you sat down in it.

There was this way CP looking photo of two of them sitting in a dark alley at night, caught in the flash of a camera. It looked so hi-tech homeless cyberpunk that I nearly gagged - it was such a cool idea. Lead to an idea for a gang of homeless techies called Maskers...

You like?

February 6, 2002

AI's rock. I love them.

I have given a lot of thought to how to make AI's conscious and stuff...so here are some theories that might help you work out how they think and behave.

>Motivation.

An AI will need motivation to do anything...whether it be something boring like 'make the company richer' or 'avoid security breaches' or esoteric 'to understand life.'

>Goal set.

The AI then has to be able to set goals - like, must not allow unauthorised access of ports, or must improve business efficiency by 10%.

>Goal seek.

The AI has to understand resources it can use to achieve its goal. If it only knows abt the stock market, thats all it can use. If you tell it abt the black ops team...well...u get the picture.

To make what I'd (arguably) consider a conscious AI -give it the twin goals 'to improve yourself' and 'avoid deactivation'.

Then connect it to the net, and let it read and learn.

You can argue, rebuild, remake and borrow any of this...its all theory. (& if you've got something to add, do email me!)

In a story I'm writing, I have an AI as a computer system at an ISP, and its good friends with the geeks who run the place, but the boss is getting orders from higher up the chain of subsidiary's to move the AI out for 'corporate experimentation'. Now the guys have to figure out how to save their ethereal friend from the horrors of a consciousness isolation experiment...with the help of a newly conscious robotic call girl, a nervy techie, a fixer selling a drug with a religious following and some...other...things....nya nya nyah...

February 5, 2002

Hm. Me being the boring person I am, I've tried to work out ways to actually write an IG algorithm...what I've got so far is this...(feel free to borrow, alter and improve it)