Brotherhood of the Machine (OOC Thread) {03}

[Lisky]

llearch, you never cease to amaze me... and yea, that's one of favorite movies of all time...

[Azlan]

I thought it was Charlie Bronson


****
Whosoever shed man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God may deem man.

[Arcalane]

You forgot duct tape.

[Lisky]

alrighty rambo....

anyways, now that i've found out that i've got several boondock saints fans among this forum... it has now become my new favorite online hangout...

soo, back on topic... anyone have a preference as to which type of safehouse DS uses?

and ah, arc, any chance your going to respond to darkshine's question, or are we still working out the logistics of who's in what van since i'm pretty sure he'd be stuck with either Exo or morgan... possibly both, since they're in charge, and probably have the most pressing questions?

[Tapewolf]

soo, back on topic... anyone have a preference as to which type of safehouse DS uses?

Not me.

[Lisky]

Alright, well, assuming there arn't any complaints... here's what i'm thinking...
A fairly large, armored, ground effect vehicle (if you've read David Drake's hammer's slammers series, a command style combat car)  Decent carrying capacity, powered by a small fusion bottle that's more or less an oversized version of darkshine's armor's cell.  The vehicle rides  on a lightly armored skirt, the 30 ton vehicles floats a few inches off the ground, and is lifted by 6 turbines, to move, the vehicle adjusts it's angle and floats where the weight is heaviest... being about the size of a military troop transport truck, it's not exactly small, but it carries everything darkshine (and a team) needs.  Not designed to go into combat or on actual missions.  In terms of appearance, it's a rough, flattened half cylinder with more angular and flat slope on the sides and a pointed wedge front, and a rounded back.  Armored plastic veiwports are what are used for driving, and although somewhat limiting, the sensor suit icludes short range proximity sensors, allowing safe driving on roads, even in traffic.  Stopping is a bit tricky, as the inertia of the vehicle is difficult to overcome even with the power of the turbines as it does literally glide across the ground. 

He uses the vehicle as a safehouse, collecting information on and planning missions.  He stores most of his weapons and equipment in it,  and it serves as a decent way to move from place to place, as the vehicle is capable of traversing a wide range of terrain, including water.  The computer suit installed is near top of the line, and when used with the sensors has a fairly impressive array of listening and tacking tools at it's disposal, and a fairly extensive storage capacity to boot.  The entire setup carries enough small arms to run a small war, and enough armored protection that it can shrug off most anything man portable, excluding anti-armor weapons.

While he is out on missions, he uses a simple biometric security system to keep the vehicle in lockdown.  For additional security, he'll park it in unpopulated areas where the chances of someone actually finding it without knowing where it was originally is almost negligible

As for the official designation the vehicle is a  M-161 Banshee, earning it's nickname from the faint, but high pitch whine the turbines give off

[Ryudo Lee]

I've seen something like that before.  In MGS4.  Drebin's vehicle.

I can go with an armored recon vehicle, but all the weapons in there are a bit overkill.

[Lisky]

it's the idea that he's got additional equipment that's mission specific, i was thinking on having the rebels raid the stash... so he drives it up, parks it in the rebel base and forgets to activate the security.  He then goes to some short planning session, for like 10-15 minutes, comes back, and mostly everything that isn't bolted down is gone besides a few boxes ammo and the extra suit of armor... both hilarious, and realistic since the rebels seem to need all the equipment they can get...Really, the "enough weapons to run a small war" was a bit of an exaggeration, what he'd actually be carrying is a few posts back... but to summarize , several variants of his favorite style rifle (the one dorcan is holding) along with mission specific weapons, like a silenced SMG, a true sniper, a shotgun, and several boxes or bandoleers of grenades along with spare parts, and cleaning tools for maintaining all his weapons... which again, most of everything would be missing before he'd actually get to use them anyways... he'd probably complain a little at first, but really, a lot of the equipment is a drop in the bucket compared to the command vehicle itself,  which would remain unharmed... 

i can totally see his reaction too... "oh you have got to be effing kidding me?!" while cradling his head in his hand

[Ryudo Lee]

How does everyone else feel about this?

[Tapewolf]

How does everyone else feel about this?

I was going to ask if we had enough crew who are actually road-legal to drive all the vehicles, but I'm sure some of the troopers can.  I'm pretty sure Dark isn't going to be driving it himself, though.  Even sending someone else in with him would be risky, too risky for the likes of Morgan, I'd say.  If there's a biometric lock, that's going to be a problem too.

[Lisky]

The lock is at the rear hatch, once your inside, it's assumed that your supposed to be there...

Remember, it's meant to be a vehicle that deploys a strike team, so having locks on the inside would be rather counter-productive as anyone not in the system wouldn't be able to use some of the features.  Hell you could probably get around that by adding wolf as a bit character and DS just never reset the lock... which is more or less the same idea as giving someone (say a crazy ex-girlfriend) a key, then never changing the locks because you forgot about it...   Either that or theres the... torch a van in exchange for DS's vehicle, drop a few incendiary grenades in the hatch, then ride off in transport instead... actually, given that morgan somewhat knows of darkshine's reputation, it wouldn't be too far of a stretch for him to ask how DS got to the area around the tower anyways...
if one of the soldiers with us happens to be able to drive it, then we don't even need to have DS going into a planning session, just take the vehicle, and clean it out during the interrogation and medical checkup at rebel HQ

[Tapewolf]

So, what's the next step?

[Lisky]

i'm waiting for Exo or morgan to respond to my question of "which van am i in, and who's going to be keeping an eye on me until i get checked out" as for everyone else, i think it's an issue of simply getting into a van and driving off...

now, if we want to get darkshine's transport, all that would take is a few back and forth posts between him and, again, either morgan or exo... since they seem to be the ones in charge at the moment... though i guess i could suggest it to dorcan, since he's the only one that DS even mildly trusts

[Nescio]

Erm, I hope that I'm not too late for the role-playing party. If not, here's my character, yo.

Name: David "Zappy" Zappelli
Age: 23
Sex: Male
Magic User: No
Psychic: No
Tech usage: Experienced in electronics usage, creator of gadgetry for TKorp, a research and development based company that sells licenses to technological advances.

List of gadgets:
TKorp MK.1 Scoripio: What most people would call "Death Ray" without the death. Rifle-like, Magazines are special fusion-powered batteries with ten good shots in them. The rounds are a good decimeter by decimeter glob, but unfortunately has overall impact of a crossbow.

TKorp Unlight Grenade: Think the polar opposite of a flashbang grenade. This summons up a field where light cannot penetrate. Of course, it won't do anything other than be very dark. It takes the form of kind of a glass ball of unknown energy. It's much more than that, in which David will explain in length, but that's essentially what it is.

TKorp Mark I Magnetic Attractor: A prototype of a shielding device that pulls metal into a good 10m by 10m block. Great for urban environments but will take a lot more time to function within a non-urbanized environment- No immediate metal and all. It takes the form of a staff with a misshapen chunk of unknown metal with a button in the center.

TKorp Matter Destruction Gas [Failed]: This was the resultant of a staff party that went bonkers due to an "added" something to the drinks. No one quite knows how this works anymore, but it summons a tent with most of the ammenities of home in a cloud of gas.

TKorp Mk.II Jumping Boots: A magnetic pulse allows the user to go exactly 20.5 meters in the air. It will not, however, aid in the coming down portion.


(Of course, he's never going to carry these around in normal life, so unless told to go steal/make these, he'll just carry around the boots for in-case.)

Faction: Individual
Physical Description: A 5'9" man to whom is accurately described as a saran-wrap of skin tightly wrapped around bones. He is a human, with a short scruff of dark hair with a matching "soul patch" beard. He usually wears a long white cloth coat that reaches down down to his knees, brown leather if specifically cold, and a t-shirt with a little symbol of an eye on the chest. He wears a pair of denim blue jeans and some dirty sneakers.

(He's a kind of stuffy "mess with electronics" guy, if it matters.)

[Ryudo Lee]

Okay, we just need to figure out how to get you into the party.  We have one other person waiting to come in and that will happen in the next mission.

[Nescio]

Sorry, I had a wave of inspiration. Look at it again. Again, very sorry, will never ever happen again.

[shadowterm]

Must. resist. need. to call. shotgun.

[Lisky]

shadow, are you talking about riding in darkshine's C&C vehicle? or the vans in general?

[shadowterm]

BOTH.

[Lisky]

... haha, effing awesome... if we do get DS's vehicle, you should totally do that... with izzy being a tech specialist, it'd actually be somewhat appropriate, since the "co-pilot" seat is where the main access to the on board command and control systems are located, you can have fun with techno-jargon if you like... like izzy can be asking DS is that a ___ model ___...  and so on...

if we want really specific information on the Banshee... as a safehouse, it's going to both store equipment, as well as be a place to sleep, so there's going to be a cot in their too... the way i see it, the very front is for the driver who has a few small holo or LCD screens with cameras and other sensor readings, controls for the vehicles. The "co-pilot" has a sort of wrap around view using again holo or LCD screens, but that seat has access to all the on board systems either for hacking, listening, or just accessing the on board files and software.   
The "midsection" just behind front compartment is where there's some standard crash couches that fold out from the walls, say 6 of them, evenly spaced, 3 to a side so an entire 8 man team can ride along inside the vehicle...
the rear is divided in half  on the left, you've got a cot, and shelves with spare ammo and parts... on the right is a sort of display wall, with weapons racks, where all the different weapons are placed, and stored, easy enough to access, but clamped in place so as to not drop anything while the vehicle is moving...
The main access ramp is in the rear, at the very back, and it's a military style, vertical drop ramp, though there is also a secondary entrance into the mid section, located on the right hand side of the vehicle, though to access that entrance, you literally have to climb up the armored skirt to get to it...

if you've got any more questions about the vehicle the way i'm picturing it, just let me know... if need be, i can do a rough sketch and post a link if people would prefer it that way, to me just describing it

[Azlan]

I have a few reservations with this vehicle.  The first is that "safe houses" are generally not mobile, they do not stick out significantly in public, and are generally a bolt hole you can hold up in... not a hover unit you can deploy strike teams from.  This is just going by CIA/MI5/KGB definition of "safe house".  The second is that this seems slightly off balance with the rest of our characters, for this to be fair, I must state that we will need some character enhancements/editing.  The third is a simple and obvious problem, the vehicle is conspicuous as all heck.

[Tapewolf]

TKorp Mk.II Jumping Boots: A magnetic pulse allows the user to go exactly 20.5 meters in the air. It will not, however, aid in the coming down portion.

Maybe I'm overanalysing this, but I see a few problems with the theory here.  Magnetic repulsion will generally only work against another magnetic field of the same polarity.  You might be able to make it work on metallic surfaces by inducing eddy currents or something, but it still won't work on concrete or plain old grassland.
If you could generate a strong enough field you could repel against the internal magnetic field of the atoms themselves, like this:
http://www.hfml.ru.nl/froglev.html

...but to lift a humanoid you'd need a (balanced) field of thousands of Teslas.  I don't think we've made 100T here yet.  Turning on a field of that strength would be like setting off an EMP weapon at the very least - and heaven help you if you (or anyone nearby) have any fillings or surgical plates.

If you do stick with the jumping boots, it might be a better idea to simply skip over how they work 

The third is a simple and obvious problem, the vehicle is conspicuous as all heck.

So far it's just been introduced as 'Darkshine's vehicle', I think.  Where I'm concerned I'm apt to play down the 'safe house' aspect of it, but logically he must have had transportation to get where he is.  Maybe he has a bit too much in the way of goodies as proposed, but I suspect most of those will be confiscated anyway.  I think it'll work if we're careful.
You're dead on with it being too conspicuous, though.  A truck, some slightly exotic-looking car would work, but an armoured vehicle is something I don't see the Brotherhood being too happy about.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Sorry, guys, but I can't seem to find the time for this anymore,  If Ryudo Lee wants to move Doc Sally into the background for now.  But RL's work is picking up, I find it real hard to keep with the story and just keep up with the postings.....


PBH

[Lisky]

For a safehouse, i'm thinking more in terms of a place he can hide out for a few days, store equipment, and plan missions, the fact that it's mobile makes it much more difficult to track, the fact that it's mobility is different than most vehicles, also means that if you don't know how it moves, tracking it properly is going to be all but impossible.

Well, as for the vehicle, the idea is that it's meant to be a little exotic, it has to be if it's going to be a ground effect vehicle (Hovercraft) However, how easy to track would it really be? fairly difficult from my perspective, although capable of traveling on roads, why would you bother when steeps inclines (Cliffs, and mountains) and forests are about the only thing capable of stopping you... rivers, lakes, oceans, bumpy terrain, mine fields... Your floating a few inches over everything, on an air cushion... and the armored skirt isn't all that far fetched, as you'd need that kind of protection to keep the vehicle usable after a crash (if it was rubber, you'd be lucky if you could patch the skirt, chances are, you'd have to replace it)  The idea that it's armored is more like a VIP style Yukon used in Iraq, than something like an armored bank vault van or APC...

If you'd prefer something a little less exotic, a truck would work, it just doesn't seem to fit my character's overall style... if you'd prefer a permanent building, i can do that, but again, he's going to need to bring a wide array of equipment if he's been given a generic mission, and left the planning to his own devices... For example, if you were payed several hundred thousand dollars with the generic goal of kill____ would you waltz up to said person, or would you observe them, track them, then make a plan when you where done so that you could actually use that money rather than be killed by security, or hauled off to prison by the police.
Also, if you look at a modern PMC's pay today (something ridiculous, starting at like 350,000 per year, more for some), and use it as an analog, DS would be the equivalent of a multi-millionaire after 10 years of work... now, he's been working for close to 50 as a freelance mercenary... just a little food for thought...

As for downsides yea, it's conspicuous, but again, that's because it's exotic, it's not going to have the top speed of a high performance car, but it'll be faster than a truck of equivalent size, it's going to have a hell of a lot of inertia for stopping...

Lets see, if you want me to edit it... in terms of actual in game commitment, all that's been said so far is that: it has a high end on board computer with command and control capabilities, some goodies, and it's ground effect... that's about it, scale, and everything else is adjustable beyond those 3 statements

[Ryudo Lee]

@PBH, sorry to see you go.  If you want to come back sometime later, just let me know.  I'll keep your character handy.

And since we've lost our major medic character, we're going to need someone else to come in and play a medic for us.

@Basilisk, the major problem that I have with it is the amount of weaponry that you have in there.  Having an armored vehicle full of computer equipment isn't a problem.  But the amount of guns in there makes it look like you have a gun for every situation, which can be more bad than good.

Let me share a similar experience.  My group was invited to play in a game with another group.  In this other group was a guy named Bob.  Bob was playing some kind of uber-caster.  And for almost anything that anyone in the party wanted to do, Bob had a spell for it.  This made playing in the game difficult as Bob was just doing everything we wanted to do with spells, and we were left sitting around doing nothing.

I don't want this to happen here.  Let's change up the amount of weaponry in there to a small handful of extra guns, not a wide array of specialized weapons to tackle any situation.

[Lisky]

alrighty, so removing the specialized gear, i'd go with at least 2 other variants of the rifle that dorcan is holding, and several pairs of pistols, along with the storage racks for the equipment of an entire team... several boxes of ammunition, along with food, water, the cot, some basic, and mid level medical supplies (burn treatment, and equipment for treating bullet wounds until a safe hospital can be reached) and the computer suit... that sound a little more reasonable?

[Ryudo Lee]

What sort of variants are we talking about here, and what kinds of pistols?

[Lisky]

Say 3 different variants all still chamber the same round... a carbine that's like 24", an exact replica of the one dorcan is holding 32", and one that's designed for full auto that has a heavier barrel, recoil reduction in the stock, and reinforcements across the entire weapon to handle the heavier stress...

As for pistols, it'd be like 2 or 3 sets of near identical silenced .45 caliber pistols that can fit into the hidden holsters, not really mission specific, but for replacement parts, as well as slight difference in performance and weight based on what he's feeling like using (say loose a few onces of weight, in exchange for smaller capacity, or a 8 inch barrel instead of a 6 inch barrel, making it more unwieldy in CQB, but adding a little more accuracy and range to the weapon) ... though one thing i was gonna do is have something like a .357 magnum style desert eagle (or an equivalent), with silencer that Darkshine would be giving away a little later once he's earned enough trust to become part of the team

Edit: if we want designations on the pistols, they're a modified version for the H&K USP.45
as for the rifle, lets just make up a designation and call it a G-61 Rapier

[Ryudo Lee]

I have no objections to those weapons or the vehicle itself.  It's no stretch of the imagination to think that a mercenary would have procured some kind of armored vehicle, or even "liberated" it from the Brotherhood, such as the rebels did with EXO.

[Lisky]

so, a little off topic from the hovercraft and other random equipment, but how are we planning on handling the doc now that Prof. is on at least temporary hiatus?