Master_Drow

While it the interviewee does not explicitly say that the TTRPG will be sold it is very heavily implied. And then the article author does talk about how the TTRPG will be sold.

 

Currently I like CD Projekt, The Witcher was a good game. So I am excited to see cyberpunk. Plus if they use the standard rules system the game wont be that hard to make! And then we can do cool things like blow off arms and replace them with mechanical ones!

 

 

Plus, I want to drive an ACPA, especially if they still apply the weight rules. Falling through floors would be an interesting mechanic.

Shadowrun. Its has a lot of fun cybernetic stuff (more complete than CP's limited selection) and their netrunning rules are pretty good. The system does have its flaws (some are pretty glaring) but it can be amazingly fun with a good group of people and even an ok Gm can make a great game.

Dude! I'm like half your age!

 

 

 

Feel old now?

 

 

Happy b-day man! (even if it is a bit late...)

Avatar project article link

 

The basic idea is that over the next 40 years the project will take incremental steps to putting the human brain into a computer and then being able to telepresence everywhere via holograms.

 

First, you start by getting robot surrogates that humans can jack into. DARPA has been pushing for this for years so they can save on soldiers.

 

Second, be able to transplant a brain into a robot.

 

Third, transplant consciousness from a human into a robot (i.e. the singularity)

 

Fourth, drop the robot, use holograms and keep peoples consciousness in a computer.

 

Each step is given 5 years to be completed, starting in 2015 with robot surrogates. So by 2045 we will all be holograms...

I not so sure about the 75% damage for flesh. I know I was reading about the original 7.62x39 bullet (the type M43, and the current chinese version). The round was basically an armor piercing round (FMJ, steel core) the problem was the bullet was too stable and would punch straight through a target before it would start to tumble. And since a tumbling bullet does more damage than a stable one this was a bad thing. Long story short the M43 did about the same amount of damage as a small pistol using non-expanind bullets. Later they removed the steel core (type M67) and that allows the bullet to start to yaw in just over 3 inches of flesh, and a tumbling bullet does much more damage than a small hole. The common round used now is a modified type M67 that has special spaces that help it fragment. So if you compare the M43 vs a fragmenting M67 you will see a huge difference is wound damage and lethality.

 

So, I would say that the half damage vs flesh is probably more accurate.

You are in fact correct on your points. I was typing so much that I had forgotten what I was going to say twords the end and just finished (did not think I would need to do one of my old High School essay outlines just for a forum post )

 

1. Correct I was using the NIJ standards. And you are correct that they only require the bullet to be stopped, but it does not stop the effects of a high speed object hitting you. And actually the Core CP book does say this in a side bar on page 101. It says that SP is not "talking about whether the bullet has actually gone through the armor. What we're really measuring is the abstract idea of whether any damage got through. This might not be an actually bullet or blade, but rather a bruised rib from a big slug or even minor concussive damage from a baseball bat." It then goes on to say that what armor piercing ammo does concentrate all of its force on a very small area of the armor, thus not allowing the force to be dispersed, and therefor penetrating the armor and actually getting the bullet into the person.

 

And yes I had forgot to mention that most damage is supposed to be from the impact of the bullet into the armor, and not from the actual bullet getting into the body.

 

2. On the note of the .357 damage, I was using the IU book because it has ammo organized into a nice table that makes it easy to find. Turns out the numbers are different.

 

 

I happen to agree with the rest of the post. AP as it stands now is not all that realistic. But then again it did have to be simplified in order to work quickly during the game.

 

My guesstimation would be a rule of thumb: "if a bullet hitting this armor can't cause more than a Light Wound (i.e. no more than 4 damage after armor) it does qualify".

I was also looking over the armor description from the CP core book. Turns out they had the same idea as you. For example under the Kevlar T-Shirt, which is SP 10, they say it would stop most .45 ACP rounds. Now that makes it a Type IIA armor, which I had show would have an SP of 15 if it was to completely stop the bullet. So they lowered the SP to 10 to account for the fact that you would probably get a broken rib from a bullet hitting a t-shirt, no matter what material it was made of (short of bricks). This appear again when they talk about Flack Vest/Pants, they give it SP 20, but also say it stops small arms fire but only slows rifle round. This is exactly the same as Type IIIA armor, which stops basically all pistols, but only slows down rifles. For Type IIIA I had shown that if it was to stop all damage then it would be SP 24, but they only gave it an SP 20. So it looks like the light wounds category is a good assessment of how much damage is allowed to penetrate.

 

 

However I still think they made the armors with way to low of an EV penalty. I can understand a EV of a 1 or 2 for a chest piece, but once you get armor plate on the arms and legs you should start suffering some pretty big negatives.

Recently one of my friends has decided to make his own game system and I have been helping him design the armor and weapons sections.

 

At first I thought that Cyberpunk's armor was all out of whack, but as I did more research I found that it is actually rather good. As most people here probably know modern body armor is divided into categories, or "types". These are (from low to high) Type I, Type IIA, Type II, Type IIIA, Type III, and Type IV. Now the crazy thing is how these types are tested and certified. See an armor is given a type by testing. A certain bullet and velocity are designated and the armor has to stop that bullet at that velocity. Actually, it has to stop 30 of them. So when an Armor says it can stop 9mm bullets it means that armor (well one like it) has been tested and has stopped 30 bullets. And when I say a bullet at a set velocity, the velocity they set (almost always) is the average muzzle velocity for that type of bullet. So that armor can stop 30 of those bullets at point blank range.

 

Now here are the types and what bullets they can stop.

Armor:

Type I...............Stops .22 and .38

Type IIA...........Stops 9mm Parabellum, .40, .45

Type II.............Stops .357 magnum

Type IIIA..........Stops .357 SIG, .44 magnum

Type III............Stops 7.62x51 (stops rifles)

Type IV............Stops .30-06 AP rounds (stops Armor Piercing Rifles)

 

Now lets compare that too the Cyberpunks weapons table.

Type I stops .22 and .38, in CP the .22 and .38 deal 1d6 and 1d6+2 damage respectively. So this armor can stop 8 damage.

Type IIA stops 9mm Parabellum, .40, and .45. In CP the 9mm, .40, and .45 deal 2d6+1, 2d6+2, and 2d6+3 respectively. So this armor stops 15 damage.

Type II stops .357 magnum. In CP the .357 deals 3d6+1. So this armor stops 19 damage.

Type IIIA stops .357 SIG and .44 magnum. In CP I dont see the damage for the SIG round, but the .44 deals 4d6. So this armor stops 24 damage.

Type III stops 7.62x51 (aka NATO Long). In CP this deals 6d6+2. So this armor stops 38 damage.

Type IV stops .30-06 AP rounds. In CP this deals 6d6 but armor is treated as half. So this armor stops 60 damage (30 if the round was a normal round, 60 so it can stop the AP.)

 

Also all types are required also stop the bullets from lower categories. So Type IIA stops 9mm, .40, .45, and the .22, and .38 that Type I stops.

 

Now most cops wear Type IIIA. So they are using around 25 points of armor protection. This is a standard flak vest that you see, it will stop all pistols round with the exception of hand cannons like the .50 Desert Eagle.

 

Once you get to Type III and above you currently need to have hard armor plates in order to stop the bullet as no soft armor is capable (yet). The current US soldier in Iraq often uses Type III. I have yet to find much of a market for Type IV, seems it is pretty rare.

 

(I'm not even going to talk about stab and knife armor types, that is another rant.)

 

The major drawback to armor is that fact that it gets encumbering. And all of the armor that I have talked about above is only for the chest. If you start putting type III with all of its armor plates and padding and then add it to the arms and legs then you get very heavy and encumbering. That Type III that the US army wears currently weight in at 30 lbs, and that is just for the torso. Add that to the arms and legs and you will easel be over 50 lbs, probably closer to 75. So it gets heavy. And the armor plates in the arms and legs would restrict movement by a lot.

 

So really if you wanted to fix armor add more encumbrance and separate armors into arms, legs, torso. Armor that covers legs and arms should have a higher EV. For example, say you give Type III armor an EV of +3 (basically a higher SP door gunners vest). Now if you wanted to add arm and leg protection of the same type that might mean an additional +1 or +2 for each. So Door Gunner pants might be the same SP but they add another +1 EV, and Door Gunner Arms would add another +2 (arms are used for more of the reflex skill so it should suffer more). So in the end for a full suit of door gunner you are at a +6 EV. Now that people have lost 6 reflex see if they still want that armor for the arms and legs.

 

So the only thing about CP that is not really accurate is how little it encumbers its user. Add more EV, and make sure you keep track of the weight and you will soon realize that most people can't fully armor up and still be effective. And thus you solve the armor problem, all while making it more realistic.

Works for me! Just wanted to make sure that you were alive.

so.... any news?

I still think the most fun creature I have ever come across in a scifi/cyberpunk setting would be the Juggernaut from Shadowrun.

 

Step 1. Take an armadillo

Step 2. Genetically modify it to be 7 feet tall.

Step 3. Line its claws with mono edge blades

Step 4. Release in target neighborhood.

 

Training: None.

Effectiveness: High

 

 

The thing is basically an armored tank with a brain. They're a fire and forget type of animal. The corporation would just haul one in, inside of an armored shipping container, and then just let it loose. It was perfect for flushing targets out of hiding, or just killing them completely.

 

Example: Have a target holed up in a biker bar with his 30 buddies all with shotguns? Sure you could send in a strike team and try and flush them out, or.... release one crazed armadillo the size of a Humvee and let the targets come running out of the bar right into your waiting arms. Then just use the extra strength horse tranquilizer (and lots of it) to knock out your killing machine after its job is done and send in a clean up crew to deal with the damages. (Or hey, if it is a war zone/bad neighborhood don't even bother with the cleanup.)

And that said, you don't really need to do a huge amount to change things to make the Net relevant again. But you do need to change what decks are for. Because all the book presents them as is hacking machines.

I can get behind that. It is true, a lot of what we talk about about what a deck can do is assumed not stated in the book(s). So sure maybe the book should talk a bit about what Virtual Reality is (like shadowrun does). However, I do think that the deck/net was designed to be very broad and undefined on purpose. That way you could have the net of Count Zero or the net of Snow Crash all the while using the CP rules.

See the book is actually very odd. At the beginning of the gear section (page 57) the books does a lot of talking about how everything you own will probably fit on your back. Then a few pages later are the prices for buying a couch, and a house to put it in. So the book is very broad. At the time their were a lot of ideas going around about what was cyberpunk. Look at Gibson's Neuromancer vs Stephenson's Snow Crash. They are both iconic works but it would be hard to make a game system that could do both. But cyberpunk does manage to do that. It gives broad rules and assumes that players will fill in what they want. So of course the book is a bit scattered, but that was so it could be useable by a broad user base.

 

Now about that page 1 rewrite. I have been working on my own version of this. I started with the movement speed as that as really off for what people could actually achieve, and then I started fixing other little things keeping in line with Cyberpunks realism. After about 20 hours of work I finally got to the life path section. Life path was great so I changed nothing, but then I got to gear and realized that was going to need a lot of work.

 

Now I have posted this work on other boards, but with the possibility that Cp was getting a new version back in December I was told to postpone work or at least keep it purely in house. So I did. I invested most of my time in Run.Net as I plan to try and use that for the net running part of the game and so really all I need to finish is gear, combat, medical. Now if there is interest I could start work on this again, and I would be happy to have community support if you really want to do a massive update for the system. But really I think most people have a system that they use and prefer and nothing we write will be used by more than a few. So is a page 1 rewrite of a 254 page book really worth the time?

 

 

Also look at your computer, it could be used to hack into a bank and steal a bunch of money. Yet you are allowed to own one. A gun could be used to kill some one, in fact it has little other use, yet you can buy one. The same idea applies to Decks. You could use them for hacking, but most people use them for just about everything else. Again look at Snow Crash and its metaverse, where basically every business has a digital version of itself where a customer can jack in and buy anything they want without even putting on pants. Hey you could hire a lawyer in the metaverse and never even really meet the guy. So that is what most people use it for. A fast, convenient way to conduct business or just go about their daily lives, without ever having to leave their house, all in a nice 3D environment, where you can be anything you want regardless of social status, or monetary background... regardless of what you are in reality.

Or you could just look at how the book Snow Crash deals with it...

I actually just started reading the book yesterday, am a bit over half done, but I can see this being very hard to film. The whole thing with Hiro and the Librarian is very interesting to read but I just don't see how to make it interesting to watch.

 

Also they will need to do some sort of voice over/narration. There is so much background that is going on and no two words are said about it. Like the whole clash between the Enforcers and the MetaCops. Or the fact that Hiro himself wrote like half the programs on the net and has unprecedented access to them. I mean if Hiro just opens up a floor panel (in the net) and steps into a subterranean tunnel the audience is wondering why the rest of the net does not use these tunnels. The reason being that Hiro wrote the damn things. How do you convey this without a voiceover/narration?

Ok so it looks like their might be some movement on this one. Snow Crash the Movie is making it way through the channels at Paramount and they claim that it is "a priority".

 

 

Here is the article link.

Ok we needs some basic firearms

grappling winches (hand held)

flotation devices

also let add more feedstock

a few inflatable rafts (if this ship goes down we want emergency exits)

A few tents

rope

medkits

more medkits

food

more food

more rope

extension cords (lots of cord)

backup radio

Deployable Emergency Generator with fuel.

A whole pile of comms and Walkies

Airhypos (the don't take much space and why fabricate if you can have them on hand now?)

Surgery kit

 

 

I think the biggest thing is that I have never played in a game like this and have no idea what I should prepare for.

 

For personal gear:

Electronics tool kit

Tool Kit

Cutting Torch + extra fuel

Welding gear and goggles.

Spare clothes

 

Im not sure what else I can get from the original books that would help here.

 

What it really comes down to is two things.

1) Display

2) Interface

 

Laptops use a screen and keyboard.

 

Decks use a DNI and ... DNI?

 

The point is that a laptop is just not equipped to handle the major net running. Remember in the Core Cp 2020 rules the only people who can hack are the Netrunners because they have the all important Menu function. Sure you can try to hack against a net runner without the ability to use the Menu function but that is like trying to fight a full Borg with brass knuckles. Strongly not advised.

 

So to run on a laptop vs a DNI is moving at the speed of fingers vs the speed of thought. It just ain't gonna work. And the reason that laptops are not fitted with DNI is probably an Operating System or software architecture thing. Like how you don't want to type your essay on your phone vs on your computer. Sure you can, but the guy on the computer is so many leaps and bound ahead of the phone guy that you might as well not even include Microsoft Word on a phone.

The last paragraph on the left hand column.

 

 

As for daisy chaining the laptop to a modem, you really don't need too. The modem has all of the power it needs to run the net. The laptop might just be some extra memory, but its CPU is often too weak to count as an additional unit. And for the price of the upper end laptops it might just be cheaper to upgrade your deck rather than buy a laptop.

Trama Team runs with a 4 to 5 man crew. And we can kick their butts any day.

Technically the core book says two things within 3 paragraphs of each other. At first it says that the cheap 500eb deck is the size of a table. Then a few lines later it says that most decks are the size of a deck of playing cards (aka iPhone size).

 

Really the major difference is laptops are keyboard interface and the deck can jack into your brain. So any programmer worth his weight in salt uses a deck just because it is soooo much faster to program with. And any gamer that plays anything better than Bejewled used a deck. And anyone who wants to search the real web, as compared to the filtered web, uses a deck. It is like the difference between watching a movie on your TV screen or being in the movie dodging bullets. The level of detail is just worlds above.

While there are laptops and desktop computers these use the standard keyboard interface. The cyberdeck allows a Direct Neural Interface (plugs) or a trode-net. Also Cyberdecks hold a lot more memory and have a way better CPU.

 

If you look at the laptop in the Gear section (page 69) of the Core CP 2020 book it says

So it has a screen and a small hard drive but it does not have a powerful CPU. Basically it is a Macbook Air with a detachable screen.

 

The Cyberdeck, on the other hand, has amazing CPU power, loads of memory. However the cheap cyberdecks are the size of school desks. The runner sits down, plugs in and dives into the net. Advanced versions probably have some form of life-support/monitoring.

 

There are portable decks that start a 2,000eb and go up in price quickly. These are basically modems that have to be plugged into a net capable machine in order to work. They are fully legal to have for anyone, especially for corporate spiders to have (spiders are anti-hackers that work for corporation to protect their digital data. Basically futuristic IT guys.) Now the Combat assault deck is much more expensive and is specifically listed as rare, requiring a Difficult test to find one available on the market (probably black market in most cases). Finally there are cellular decks. These are about twice as expensive and the only major benefit that one has is that it does not have to plug into a net capable machine, it can just use the cellular network to access the net.

 

There is the cybermodem, which is a portable version of a cyberdeck put in a piece of cyberware (like an arm or leg). These are amazingly expensive. The 3,000eb version actually is just the portable deck and still needs to be linked to a net linked machine to work. The 5,000eb version allows for you to go with a cellular deck and jack in via cell towers.

 

 

Now the legal reasons for this are the same for a normal computer. The laptops of the CP world are about as powerful as a modern day netbook or Eee pc. Sure they can run, but text documents are about it. The real net is run on real machines. We're talking full computers, the computer has to have the power to run the I-G transform that makes the net into a virtual visual landscape. That takes a lot of processing power. So anyone who wants to do any programming within an I-G landscape needs to have a powerful computer. That is where the Deck comes in. It has that processing power. The programs alone take 1 memory unit each, if we set each memory unit to about 1 gigabyte then you can see that a standard Eee pc is not going to handle running these suckers. It would be like running Photoshop on a Dell from 1995, not going to work. So the Deck is for the professional consumer that wants to run Photoshop, mix videos, run computer games, or just run about the web looking at all of its glory. Heck with the CP world having of Holographic projectors you could telepresence anywhere in the world. Have a meeting in Japan an 1 o'clock and be at your warehouse in France at 2 o'clock, all while being in your one bedroom flat in Milwaukee in your underwear. Now that is the Future.

I'm with Triton, the terms Soviet (or Neo-Sov, which no-one would use formally) are outdated anachronisms and any revamp of the cyberpunk setting needs to remove them. Today's younger generations around the world have no idea what a soviet is.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. As a member of this younger generation we know what soviet means. We do play Call of Duty after all.

 

Seriously, I could see the term Neo-Sov catching on with my generation, it gives it a hip new sound that is not your grandpa's Russia.

Location: Forward Operating Base

Antagonist: Local Militia

Goal: Sneak across enemy lines into a nearby research facility and steal the research data.

 

Location: Highway

Antagonist: Nomad Tribe

Goal: Pay the Nomads the "gate toll" and cross their camp without incident.

 

Location: Da Street

Antagonist: Booster Gang

Goal: Get out alive.

 

Location: Military Supply Depot

Antagonist: Local Guards

Goal: Steel some military hardware and escape.

 

Location: City

Antagonist: Courier

Goal: Get the package the Courier has and deliver it to your employer

 

Location: Subway station

Antagonist: Cyberpsycho

Goal: Get. Out. Alive.

 

Location: Bus

Antagonist: Robber(s)

Goal: Don't get killed by the guys robbing the bus.

 

Location: Docks

Antagonist: Drug Gang

Goal: Get the shipment of drugs and get back to your fixer.

 

Location: City Hall

Antagonist: Security and random persons

Goal: Plant a bug in the Mayor office so that your employer can get the scoop on him.

 

Location: News station

Antagonist: Police

Goal: Broadcast your message to the world and escape.

 

It is easy to keep track of new posts if you just press the "View New Posts" button. It returns with all of the new posts within the last day. At the bottom of that page it also allows you to filter for new posts this week, month, etc.

 

It does glitch sometimes. Like I often get the last 2 or 3 days instead of just todays, and if there are no new posts today you can't change the filter to a week or month because it redirects to a different page, which is kinda annoying. (hey mods, I have a great idea! Fix that? Maybe? Please?)

 

 

Although there are a few old forums that could probably be moved to the archive section. I mean right now they are just archives anyway, why not make it official.

 

You know what could generate more traffic (if even just a little). Get Wisdom to move the Datafortress forums here that way I can be extra lazy and not have to remember to check two boards.

In all the time that I spent studying France my teachers never mentioned any scary children's books. The Little Prince gets a lot of attention.

 

Then again if I was teaching a class on Germany I would probably leave out the original Grimm's Fairy Tails and just mention the nice Disney versions.