USH'S MATRIX GAME- Zion play thread.

Started by Ushgarak51 pages

"It's very difficult to programme into the Matrix things that don't actually exist within it," says Ariadne. "Clothing and guns and the like... we can simply steal and duplicate the code used by the Matrix itself, but the Matrix has no code for 'ipod' and things that are not meant to be there.

"I can do it. Sometimes we need specialist gear, like bug hunters. But it's hard and the System is apt to notice unusual code. It's the same reason we don't give you energy weapons in there, and it sure as hell isn't going to get done for a music player! You wouldn't even know they existed if it wasn't for the museum."

-

Any other comments on how the training went?

"I like the museum..."

Other than not taking the Neo route of carrying lots of automatic weapons and no clips, Ares is good.

Actually, Neo took a mixture of auto and semi...

Very true. Then I'll just say it's Mors' fault somehow that I carried too many big guns...

Pffft, your own fault 😛

Anyway, on our side of things, I think it was mostly a matter of needing to pay more attention to what was going on, and people needing to listen to what they're told. And keeping up and keeping track of what THEY'RE doing.

On a personal note, I'm not really too sure if I'm going to keep using katars. I like them, but as Ush pointed out, even against armored opponents I still do more damage with knives. Plus if I drop that path, then I can get back and use those auxillaries I had before.

I think Barb intends on taking PC, though, as a second weapon.

(Actually, I'm swapping out Swooping Eagle for Iron Butterfly. I'll be carrying a KaBar Combat Knife as a backup Melee weapon.)

Still sitting silently, by himself. Barb appears to not be focused on the room around him. Coming to, a few minutes later, he says gravely to the assembled Crews. "My performance was not as good as it could of been, I'm still not as in shape as I was before my Leave of Absence."
Nodding his head, he continues.
"But I have proved, to myself, and you all. That I am ready to go back on Assignment."
Barb stands, Grinning. And Grabs, bear hugging the nearest person, who happens to be Dallas.

Knives are a Hacker's weapon; with such a large die pool, tapping Knives means you still get good successes against armour.

But a Natural trying to knife through mook armour may actually never hit; the Katars work much better for him. And Katars are light enough to allow the use of the low encumbrance Paths, which is a hefty bonus. They have much more punch than a knife; Knives really need lots of dice to make it up. Hence for Hackers.

Oh...heh...thought of another thing that could have gone better with this.

We kind of need to get out of the SW mindset of being able to take on a dozen mooks on your own and not get a scratch...

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Knives are a Hacker's weapon; with such a large die pool, tapping Knives means you still get good successes against armour.

But a Natural trying to knife through mook armour may actually never hit; the Katars work much better for him. And Katars are light enough to allow the use of the low encumbrance Paths, which is a hefty bonus. They have much more punch than a knife; Knives really need lots of dice to make it up. Hence for Hackers.

Can I completely rework my character?

Yes you can.

Ok, well, I think people are mostly aware of what did and what did not work out. There were some particularly important lessons- concentrated Mook assault rifle fire is VERY dangerous, so try not to let people become sole targets against mook groups designed to fight lots of you. Then there was the thing about Gunners having some form of defence that works up close, because otherwise they can become seriously comrpomised.

I think people were a little under-tapped at times, though this eased out near the end. I think some more CofC taps at intelligent times would help. The trouble with CofC tapping is that unless it refreshes quickly, within a few turns you end upo killing less than you would have done. So the trrick is to tap it when you desperately need the effect; first turn intoi a room full of bad guys isn't a bad time, to cut down on the vast amounts of enemy fire. This was especially true of the final room.

Those Knights were horrible. It was five successes needed to down them, two points of armour and half damage (BEFORE armour) against bullets. So shooting at them without Eagle Eye was a complete waste of time. Shooting at them with it was slow, but could be done safely at range. Hackers were your best bet against the Knights. Trouble with armour is, the more attempts you need to drop a Mook armoured target, the more effective the armour has been. Take Melkor, going for the Knights down below. Although he was attacking two at once, he does not have a high die pool. Even rolling three successes- not bad on his dice- that was only one damage at a time because of the armour. He needed, at that rate, a total of fifteen successs to kill it, taking five turns! Almost ludicrous. Compare San and Melis. One had a huge dice pool, rolled seven successes in one attack and killed one stone dead; the other was ignoring armour, rolled five and killed. Kill the damn thing in one hit and the armour has not done much. And as those Knights had a base damage of four and an attack pool of six, simply standing near them caused your character to become more and more dead... Even though it would only have been attacking one target, a much better tactic for Melkor would have been to use Dim-Mak and attack them unarmed. Then, ignoring armour, he could have dropped them on average one every two turns.

What surprised me is that no-one went for the dead centre of the lowest floor. Any Gunner there could fire at absolutely any target; it was a good position. It made you vulnerable, too, but that was probably a secondary concern. It also would have saved Gunners the trouble of actually running up to their targets, which is what they seemed to be doing. I thought there might actually be quite a fight over the middle ground.

Anyway. Zuban was six dice, base damage five, Heealth of 70.

The Twins had seven dice, Passive Wings and Defensive Master (the tap ability of whuich did nothing for them) and a base damage of 1. They had a health of fifty.

General Lee had Defiant Farmer, Defensive Master, King on the Water, Storm Turtle and Sharpened Scales, with nunchuk damae of two. His health was sixty, and he was attacking with eight dice.

None of these Paths were literal; they were all simulating the maximum skill of 'mundane' opponents, with paths being used to help simulate that, such as the opposition you faced at Ni Zahn's place. Technically Zuban was breaking the human health limit, with 70, but with the 'big bastard' template that he represents, it is ok to push things a little. In any case, it was very easy for you guys to be more skilled than them.

They weren't really running off your rules, they were simpler; they never swapped, and all their tapped powers untapped at the refresh.

good pointers. I'm not too sad I missed the trainings mission altho it would be more fun than dojo fighting.

Wow. Those knights DO suck. I remember thinking very recently "just how much ****ing damage do they need to take?!"

Apparently, quite a bit.

Ok, if someone can provide me with a list of the finalised crews, we can get going on the real thing.

Remember you won't be allowdd into the Matrix unless you have at least submitted an Oracle prophecy.

---

Marduk gives you guys the brief.

"We've found out very little about these Exiles with our efforts so far. But what we have discovered is that they have a relationship with the crime underworld inside the city. We think this is for two reasons- first of all, just as all of us were, the Exiles are outcasts, and making achievement in illegal areas is more in keeping with their nature. Secondly, it is a matter of simple practicality. Although the System does not seem to make much effort to specifically hunt them, they do not want to make themselves obvious. The System in the Matrix is represented by forms of authority- Government, police, business... by staying out of the way of these things, the Exiles avoid the System as much as possible.

"I have been working on the assumption that if we mapped out enough of the city's underworld, we would find links between it and the Exiles. I;ve finally succeeded. I know there is a meeting on in a few days; a criminal meeting but one which involves personalities which I am sure are Exiles, judging by some of the commentary made about them. We don't know who they are meeting, and why, or even where. Where is important. I've traced some of the people that know where. We're going to intercept them, find out where this meeting is... and see who we find there when it happens."

"A bit of aggressive negotiation then?" Cloud says, standing up again.

"I doubt they will hand things out willingly. As for the meeting, though... I think the best we can do there is watch. Most of you will be here for backup, in case things don't go well."

"When do we intercept these people, then? I assume this is something where it needs to be done as soon as possible." San asks. "And have things ever really gone well?"

(will put together a list of everyone on the Percy, as far as I know)

"From what I've heard, if things ever went well we wouldn't be here." Hawk mutters.

"So we're going to a meeting we know nothing about, to find people we know almost nothing about, and our only leads are going to be 'uncooperative.' Sounds like great fun."

Okay, this is everyone on the Percy.

San
Cloud
Azrael
Barbarossa
Klez
Melis
Sirin
Helios (still needs a prediction)
Melkor
Berserker
Mirage

Should all be correct...Helios still needs a prediction, though, so I'll go and PM him about that.

Sure is a huge change from the end of the first game when it was just me, Cloud, and Azrael (as far as I can remember) 😛

Woo for seniority!