This is a mostly OOC thread for the purpose of planning, plotting, and scheming.

"Ok, so is anyone else creeped out that she offered us that much cash up front, and then didn't fight too hard to keep an extra? I think she means to kill us."

Yeah, the fact she wants to know everyone we talk to is kind of freaky too.  My leaning is actually to have her meet us to participate in a "meeting" with someone shortly before the run and then keep her on ice during the run.  If there's a welcome party when we come out, at least we'll have some leverage.  She did say we could dictate the terms of the transfer.  She wanted to be involved, so we could let her keep an eye on what's going on from a safe distance.

My plans: head to the site and do a quick long-range aerial scan to get a sense of exactly what the set-up looks like, then keep the place under surveillance for a good 24 hours to get a sense of number of employees, race, patterns of behavior etc.  Should be able to find out whether security is internal or contractors.  If the latter, can find out who.  Also will try to identify cameras and other security systems that can be picked up on sensors.  Finally, will try to crack the local security's encryption.

Any chance you can do invisibility?

In terms of research, we want to know who security is.  Should also find out where Mitushima-affiliated facilities are that might provide backup.  We should avoid searching for the file-name keyword itself as there are likely monitors set up to watch for that.  If we can find out who built the facility, that might give us some electronics and other security plans that could be useful.  Decking the site itself is risky.  If we do go in, it'll be essential to leave no foot-print.  If they figure out we've been there, they'll up security.  Learning what we can about the Johnson would be good too - might give us an idea of what the play is.

So how long does downloading from a tablet take?

Downloading will take second, no stress.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:57, Sat 07 Mar 2015.

Things only take a long time when you're jacked in and people are trying to shoot at you ;>

That's great!  Just great!  No pressure on the run, right?  :/

Re: invis - it won't be my best work, but I can do it.

If you want I can do a quick astral sweep over the site, see if they have any patrolling spirits or wards we need to know about. I won't go through, but an aerial look shouldn't cause more problems than payoff.

Does anyone have a bolthole we can stash communal gear and scheme IC in?

Either we aren't meant to survive the run, or what we are obtaining is worth a whole lot more than what they are paying us.  If they wanted to kill us, wouldn't they be paying us more after the fact rather than up front?

We could always set up a few decoy meetings with fake contacts too.  Is anyone good with disguises?

I think scouting out the place with the drones and on the astral is a good idea too.  (maybe do astral first to make sure invisibility will be ok later).  If we don't want to deck the site directly, we can go for the people who deal with the site.  The security, shipping, cleaning companies (if they are off site too).  Maybe even check out a few key employees as well, like supervisors and secretaries.

For a bolthole St. V might be able to set up something at a shipyard or marina.  Maybe an empty cargo container or a boat that is not currently in use?  He would have to check and see what's available.

Copperhead won't trust you guys enough to show you any of her bolt-holes yet.  Certainly agree to doing an astral sweep.  That can probably proceed in parallel with the longer-term drone sweep.  (I've got a shaman friend who can probably hide the drone, so should be low-risk for a passive scan.)

Agree that going indirect is a good route.

As a note, you are operating under a timeline. My plan is one day of "planning" (i.e., no meetings or active interactions) equals at most a week of real time. That'll probably get collapsed a little bit if I keep posting as rapidly as we've done.

At this point, you all need to finish up your meet with Eve and head out, or roll up your sleeping bags.

My schedule will be wonky the week of the 23rd, so just expect that.

So let's get to posting with our intentions then!  ;)

BTW, now that I've gotten information off the tablet, is there anything else this 'Eve' is going to share with us?  Like money?

You guys haven't technically formally accepted the job yet :P

I think Toombs should still pump her for more cash on the basis of the target's expecting a run and there's a chance the other team will spook the client.  (And if she willingly throws another wad of nuyen at us, then my spidey sense will jump to overdrive.)  After that, we say yes, take our cred sticks and  walk out of the room to the adjoining bar where we can dance around a bit and figure out whose place we go hang out at to do more planning.

I doubt its possible, but I wish I could coax her to buy me the latest decking equipment.

She gave us 10000 for covering business expenses.

I need about 1.5 million in order to buy the Fairlight Excalibur.

Heh, yeah, I guess that is just a little bit over budget...

Not to belittle the game, but I've never seen any game in any system last long enough for you to afford the Fairlight Excalibur. There might be a mission where we steal one, but there's a reason why it's got that name - thing's a legendary artifact and you can count yourself lucky if you've ever seen one.

It appears she really doesn't care about our contact network, which was what I was fretting over. Dead contacts are a serious loss of investment in-game and can cripple you.

While St. V is tracking down somewhere safe, Toombs will do an astral sweep. If PB is ok with it, I know there are a few Awakened clubs in the area (according to errata) that I can rent out a warded back room to leave my meat while I go a-wanderin. Unless Copperhead wants to mention that she's a rigger, in which case I can just leave myself buckled in while she waits in the van.
We do have a map and a general location, hai?

As far as entry is concerned, we have a few options. We've got the ninja route, package delivery, corpsec, and janitors. Of all of those, Corpsec is the one most likely to have unquestioned access to the server room (unless we can somehow swing server maintenance as a cover). UPS gives us ready access to a disposable vehicle (though we'd have to steal one first, just like old times).
And of course, St.V would look the least out of place as corpsec or janitors, & the party as a whole would probably look the least suspicious to assensing as corpsec... But that said, it would be the hardest to spoof.

St.V, if you can swing that temporary hideaway, that would be great.
Noruas, if you have the chops to do some background investigation for building plans and subcontractors, that would be (I think) our best investment of your skills at the moment.

Toombs isn't willing to try to push for more cash. If we find we need some more gear, that might be worth asking for later. While I like the idea of getting free radios with broadcast encryption, if this is a setup then they would be... problematic.
Of course we could ask for radios and refrain from using them until our next job. But otherwise I'm not going to push for more without a very specific grocery list and a clear & present need - because the easiest way to guarantee that your J isn't going to pay you is to make the pay more expensive than the Cleaner.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:21, Sun 08 Mar 2015.

Agree we won't use the radios this mission - except perhaps to misdirect.  The 2am "earliest ingress" timeline makes package delivery and janitors both tough.  Neither are likely to arrive at that point of the evening.  So that leaves 3 options:
- ignore the instructions on arrival time (which we might get away with, but only if we're totally successful in making no noise
- come in as a corp sec team beefing up security due to a reported pending attachk
- do the ninja thing

I think corp sec is trickiest.  We'd need spoof the local team not only for when we arrived, but also for the following day or two.  And that'd be hard.  As well, we'd need good decking support to get us set up as recognized, to re-route any double-checking they'd choose to do, etc.  At the same time, we'd need our decker free to check things out on the inside.  Plus we'd need to grab the appropriate vehicle and correct sizes of uniforms, proper id badges, etc.

Not totally beyond the realm of possibility, but not something I suspect we should try to pull off with an entry-level team.

In terms of ninja, I'm a B&E specialist, but I'm not sure what anyone else's stealth capabilities are.

I can do a quick zip closer to the base if people want me to. I don't know that risking an alarm or two is worth it, and I can always go back on my own later.

Also, if you can use Etiquette to get info on the J, I can try to scare some up when the recon sweep is over. If we believe that there's anything new to be gained, anyway.

This is early in the storyline, so it's possible that magical security was pretty poor.  Physical security seems amazingly sucky too for a research complex that they decided to bury inside a fragging hill in the middle of a park in the middle of Seattle - not like that's a cheap exercise.  Just sticking your nose in briefly into the lobby to see if anything's there wouldn't be bad.  If there's a ward you can't see, that's useful.  If there's no wards and no elementals, then you can scout the whole place.  If you see anything, you can probably disappear before whatever it is can see you.  And if it does see you, you can probably buzz before it gets a sense of what you are and whether it needs to be concerned - presuming you pop in in a location that's going to best position you to see what's going on and be somewhat hard to see yourself.