Interface Zero: Upgrade in Progress

[nDervish]

Reputation:

Reputation starts at 0.

If there's any information that you think should be included in the job/bounty listings that I left out, let me know and they can be tuned, although the specific details of who's hiring and who the target is were omitted deliberately. In the future, you'll get more detailed information about what you'd be doing and who you'd be doing it to if the fixer arranging the job is someone you've worked with before (or a Contact), but, for this first batch, all you've got is what's being made completely public.

Chicago Free Press, Saturday, April 15, 2090

Top News

2090-04-08: Koreatown woman admits to having husband killed
"I said I missed him and he told me to hire a better sniper. So I did."

2090-04-11: Loftan Chemicals seeks fountain of youth
Simulacra who have lived beyond termination date asked to volunteer for life-extension study

2090-04-13: West Side warehouse and tenement block burns, 30 dead
Testing of injured for signs of toxic smoke still ongoing

2090-04-15: Aquarius Engineering opens Arlington Heights distribution center
Premier NAC arms manufacturer braves rad-zone for easy access to the O'Hare Military Sector

2090-04-15: No TAP? Afraid of needles? The SAGE-IT project to watch!
World leader in accessible augmentation systems begins trials of revolutionary TAPsule(tm) oral nanotech

2090-04-15: Virtual angel is no Guardian
Mumbai-based Sanjan Tempe Warner Group promotes the release of Global Guardians 3: Nebulus Hungers with HR Angel(tm) avatarlets


Selected Job Listings

2090-04-09: Deliver supplies from north central Chicago to southwestern territory. 1,000 Cr. Contact Melissa Lancaster.

2090-04-09: Technicians needed for emergency firewall upgrade in the field. 2,000 Cr. Contact Michelle Rogers.

2090-04-10: Escort pilot for hostile acquisition of aircraft. 3,000 Cr, NDA required. Contact Marguerite Vaughn.

2090-04-10: Gold Coast kidnapping. Target must be recovered alive. 5,000 Cr. Contact Michelle Roman.

2090-04-10: Damsel in distress requires escort into the Loop. 4,000 Cr, NDA required. Contact Melissa Lancaster.

2090-04-11: Make an example of two troublemakers. No fatalities, please. 2,000 Cr. Contact Juana Wilson.

2090-04-12: Operatives needed to bypass home security and duplicate certain data. 2,000 Cr. Contact Trina Smith.

2090-04-12: Discrete taxi and bodyguard to GYY (Gary International Airport). 1,500 Cr. Contact Jerry Davis.


Open Bounties

29,100 Cr: Connie Acosta. Wanted for hacking and data theft. Last seen in Koreatown.

17,250 Cr: Dennis Diaz. Wanted for extortion of Naperville residents. Warning: Target is known to be in possession of a combat golemmech.

8,400 Cr: Keith Reid. Wanted for detonation of explosive devices on Yorktown Shopping Center property.

3,900 Cr: Michael Davis. Wanted for breaking and entering at Yorktown Shopping Center.

3,650 Cr: Lowell Jenkins. Wanted for assault with a deadly weapon against Gold Coast residents.

1,900 Cr: Teri Carter. Wanted for destruction of property in Naperville.

1,350 Cr: Harry Payne. Wanted for creating a public nuisance in Naperville.

[Willard]

The West Side warehouse fire seems like something David would be into, on the other hand it's several days old by now and you don't seem like the investigator type. AE opening up in Arlington Heights is something I'm going to make a note of, but it's not immediately useful.

Out of the jobs I'm interested in the escort pilot (#3) and damsel in distress (#5). The bounty for Dennis Diaz is also very appealing, it pays well and I want his mech. He's probably too dangerous to take down right away, but we could do some investigating.

It's interesting to see how petty some of the bounties are, I imagine we'll be on that list and climbing pretty soon unless we're careful. How do the bounties work, are they officially sanctioned or privately set and funded?

[bladerunner_35]

That's what I (we) came up with last night. Now for some equipment. As for the reason I'm there I'm going to go for that insurance fraud idea I had yesterday. Will write more about it soon!

See you on Monday!

Another thing you could think about besides equipment is your Contacts. Each character gets to describe two characters that you know somehow and can ask for help or information. Just a short description.

[nDervish]

The West Side warehouse fire seems like something David would be into,

Funny how that connection came up when I wrote all those things up before you made the characters, isn't it?

It's interesting to see how petty some of the bounties are, I imagine we'll be on that list and climbing pretty soon unless we're careful. How do the bounties work, are they officially sanctioned or privately set and funded?

In-game,

The bounty system is a popular method of law enforcement in the Interface Zero setting in general, and in the free city of Chicago specifically. Criminals who cannot be brought to justice by the usual security agencies that hold the contracts for the neighborhoods in which the crimes are committed typically use some of their budget surplus to offer rewards for bringing criminals in.

Bounty boards are posted in The Deep, usually by corporate security agencies, but sometimes by megacorporations or powerful individuals. Characters are free to try to collect a bounty, though sometimes they have the option of registering their interest in a bounty with the agency or person who posted the bounty in hopes of acquiring specialized equipment or information that might be vital to catching the individual(s) who are sought.

Most of the time, the expectation is that the criminals are brought in alive. Killing is sometimes warranted, depending on the severity of the crimes committed, but since murder itself is a crime, bringing a criminal back dead simply warrants a new investigation into the crime of murder.

Out of game, the bounty amount is determined by adding up base values based on the target's profession (ranging from 300 for a fence or a gear head up to 1500 for a golemmech pilot), the crime (from 100 for creating a public nuisance up to 10,000 for murder), and the location, then multiplied by a "notoriety" factor from x1 to x10 to reflect how infamous the criminal is.

For example, Harry Payne is a hacker (1,000 Cr) who created a public nuisance (100 Cr) in Naperville (250 Cr) and is basically unknown (x1 notoriety). Dennis Diaz, on the other hand, is a golemmech pilot (1,500 Cr) wanted for extortion (4,000 Cr), also in Naperville (250 Cr) and the security forces take him seriously enough that there are probably even a few non-locals looking for him (x3 notoriety).

Another thing you could think about besides equipment is your Contacts. Each character gets to describe two characters that you know somehow and can ask for help or information. Just a short description.

And one more: Someone on another forum made a comment that reminded me of the "Motivations" system from Eclipse Phase, which I think would be good to incorporate. Basically, it's just a list of three things that your character is either for (+) or against (-).

The example Motivations given in the EP core rules are:
Alien Contact
Anarchism
Artistic Expression
Bioconservatism
Education
Exploration
Fame
Fascism
Hedonism
Hypercapitalism
Immortality
Libertarianism
Martian Liberation
Morphological Freedom
Nano-ecology
Open Source
Personal Career
Personal Development
Philanthropy
Preservationism
Reclaiming Earth
Religion
Research
(AI/Infomorph/Pod/Uplift) Rights
(AI/Infomorph/Pod/Uplift) Slavery
Socialism
Techno-Progressivism
Vengeance
Venusian Sovereignty
Wealth

Obviously, some of them aren't applicable to the Interface Zero setting (no need to Reclaim Earth, for example), but Sebastian's character might, for example, have "+Sim Rights, +Hedonism, -Nortec Industries". They can overlap with your edges/hindrances, but don't have to. After each adventure, you can change one Motivation to something different.

Whatever your Motivations might be, I'll give you at least one bennie per session for each Motivation that comes up in play, possibly more if it comes up in a way that's particularly awesome and/or causes problems for you.

[Willard]

Ok, thanks, that's good to know. Also nice to see that the local law enforcement will actually have budget surpluses in the future

So here's a write-up of my character, also without equipment or picture for now:

Codename: Almighty (from the airstrike guys in Apocalypse Now)

Race: Human 2.0

Occupation: Gear head (can I have Jump Racer too? )

Abilities: Agility, d10 (advanced); Smarts, d8; Spirit, d6; Vigor, d6; Strength, d4 (genetic abnormality).

Skills: Boating, d10; Piloting, d10; Driving, d10 (savant); Shooting, d10; Notice, d4.
All but notice are specialized in the respective drone type. I'm torn between taking the d4 in Notice or adding a specialization (Jump Bikes) in Driving. The latter seems a lot cooler, but a bike is pretty expensive and I probably won't afford it if I can't have two occupations.

Edges: Ace, Rich.

Hindrances: Arrogant, major (due to race); Secret, major; Giri, minor; Enemy, minor; Shakes, minor (due to hitting max strain).
I'm a little torn between Secret and Overconfident as a major, but I'm leaning pretty heavily towards Secret. I had an idea with the minor Pacifist, but game-play is pretty much guaranteed to go in the other direction.

Augments: Vehicle Control Interface 3 (6 strain, as per our discussion).

Motivations: Personal development, wealth, research (all positive).

With the connections the important thing is that each person states a connection with one other person's character, and that the whole team goes around. Then everyone will have two connections, while only having to come up with one of their own.

Assuming Björn will still play the journalist character my character could have been one of his sources, leaking information on a series of savage security operations that my employers were involved in.

I'll have to look some more at the gear and drones to buy, and will probably try to keep a decent amount in "cash" to start with. I'll also try to find some picture that fits, but searching on these image sites hasn't proved that effective.

[bladerunner_35]

Assuming Björn will still play the journalist character my character could have been one of his sources, leaking information on a series of savage security operations that my employers were involved in.

I am continuing to develop my "blue plater" based of Matt Damon in Elysium. He's basically just a Joe Nobody with a family of some sort to support, minding his own business as a factory worker until an accident leaves him crippled. By an extremely fortunate (or unfortunate) chain of events his pro bono lawyer Lawrence Chaspian Phillip-Morris IX manages to wrestle an insurance claim of a couple of tens of tousands of credits from the corp. And they even replaces his lost arm with second-grade glitching cyberware free of charge!

Needless to say the corp is less than happy that he managed to find a loop hole even though he becomes something of a celebrity and heroe on the streets and among his co-workers. The corp promptly blacklist him from setting fot in a factory ever again and without income and people depending on him our heroe is forced to find money somehow. Being an ordinary proud working man he decides to try his hands on security work and uses part of his insurance claim to take a crash course with Max Max, retired bounty hunter, merc and semi-celebrity. After completing Max Max's two months "Become a successfull freelance security agent in less than four months or your money back"-course our heroe manages to bring in a scared father of three by sheer luck.

Now he suddenly finds himself at his next job with a towering hybrid capable tearing a man apart, a very sexy lady that for all her beauty seem very cold and a drone jockey that obviously is upper class. Our heroe has never felt more out of his depths but being the man he is he steeles himself for another day at work.

[bladerunner_35]

And one more: Someone on another forum made a comment that reminded me of the "Motivations" system from Eclipse Phase, which I think would be good to incorporate. Basically, it's just a list of three things that your character is either for (+) or against (-).

Obviously, some of them aren't applicable to the Interface Zero setting (no need to Reclaim Earth, for example), but Sebastian's character might, for example, have "+Sim Rights, +Hedonism, -Nortec Industries". They can overlap with your edges/hindrances, but don't have to. After each adventure, you can change one Motivation to something different.

Whatever your Motivations might be, I'll give you at least one bennie per session for each Motivation that comes up in play, possibly more if it comes up in a way that's particularly awesome and/or causes problems for you.

I like this. Perhaps we can develop it a little but for now let's use it.

I do not really care that much about which job we take but it seems we might be able to take down several bounties in Naperville or Yorktown (where the bounties are higher). Also I think my character would at least try to stay away from the more obvious criminal missions (break-in and entering or make examples of...).

[nDervish]

Also nice to see that the local law enforcement will actually have budget surpluses in the future

The wonders of privatization!

Occupation: Gear head (can I have Jump Racer too? )

Nope, just one.

Note that the free VCI from Gearhead would only cost 10k to buy from your starting cash. The free jump bike from being a racer is worth a good deal more than that...

With the connections the important thing is that each person states a connection with one other person's character, and that the whole team goes around. Then everyone will have two connections, while only having to come up with one of their own.

Contacts are NPCs by definition, so you do need to each come up with two. I'm not sure why the IZ2 character creation beta doesn't include them, but IZ1 listed typical contacts for each occupation. For gearhead, the list is: Fixer, Ronin, Pizza Delivery Driver, Chauffeur, Security Officer, Hacker, Junkyard Owner, Taxi Cab Driver, Jump Jacker, LAV Pilot, Jump Bike Racer. You can come up with your own, too, as long as you have an explanation for how you know them. You don't even have to like them, they're just people you can and ask for favors or information.

Now he suddenly finds himself at his next job with a towering hybrid capable tearing a man apart, a very sexy lady that for all her beauty seem very cold and a drone jockey that obviously is upper class. Our heroe has never felt more out of his depths but being the man he is he steeles himself for another day at work.

I like it!

[bladerunner_35]

I think that CW is talking about the connections our characters were going to have with each other.

[God45]

Now he suddenly finds himself at his next job with a towering hybrid capable tearing a man apart, a very sexy lady that for all her beauty seem very cold and a drone jockey that obviously is upper class. Our heroe has never felt more out of his depths but being the man he is he steeles himself for another day at work.

Very cool

2090-04-10: Damsel in distress requires escort into the Loop. 4,000 Cr, NDA required. Contact Melissa Lancaster.

I say we start out with this one. We all have skills and abilities that we can use during it. It pays well. And it at least on the surface seems pretty moral.

2090-04-11: Loftan Chemicals seeks fountain of youth
Simulacra who have lived beyond termination date asked to volunteer for life-extension study

This story I want to check out for personal reasons

[Willard]

Alright, I'm going to switch to jump racer then, having just recently quit my job as a gear head flying drones for corporations. With that I'm also switching the d4 in Notice for a specialization in Driving towards Jump Bikes.

Without knowing what their suggested NPC contacts are I'd go for a race queen (girlfriend, more or less) and a corporate executive from the old drone ops company I used to work for (left on good terms, might do an odd job here and there).

Sebastian's character and mine could easily have met at a few post-race parties. The others I'm not so sure about.

Let's talk to Melissa then, about getting that damsel into the Loop. As a driver/pilot/racer I'll be right in my element. We can also start investigating a few of the other stories (fountain of youth, mech bounty, maybe the airplane heist).

[nDervish]

Without knowing what their suggested NPC contacts are I'd go for a race queen (girlfriend, more or less) and a corporate executive from the old drone ops company I used to work for (left on good terms, might do an odd job here and there).

Those are both good, but, for reference, here's IZ1's list of suggestions: Fixer, Ronin, LAV Pilot, Jump Bike Racer, PR Consultant, Smuggler

Feel free to come up with a name and other basic details for the drone ops company.

Something else that I meant to ask about on Monday, but kind of half-forgot and half-didn't-have-time-for:

How do you guys want to handle general cost of living? If you want to keep it simple, IZ1 has a list of what the monthly cost of living is depending on whether your lifestyle is Destitute, Poor, Modest, Moderately Well-Off, Wealthy, or Filthy Rich. Alternately, if you want to be more detailed, the equipment chapter has rules for calculating your rent based on the size and location of your home and a ton of subscription services that you can use to define exactly how your character lives in their downtime and how much it costs them to do so.

(Side note: The cost of living chart is actually listed as "per session", but I plan to interpret "per session", "per adventure", and "per Advance" costs and occupational income as "per month" instead. Some occupations also have "per Rank" benefits, which will instead be "per quarter".)

Finally, since we were talking a bit about the Elan edge, I'll pass along this (IMO very surprising) answer from Clint: http://www.peginc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41953 If you have Elan and use a bennie to reroll a task involving several dice (such as firing on full auto), the +2 bonus from Elan only applies to one die, not to all of them.

[God45]

I think that we should do the cost of living the easy way

Oh, and here is my character. I have changed nothing since tuesday. I am still thinking about the pluses and minuses

Real name: Geisha combat model type 4B number 2000001

Street name: Paladin

Meta-human type: Simulacra soldier type

Occupation: Escort

Party role: Street Samurai

Contacts: Strawberry, hippy commune leader. Laura Blue, Zeek healer and vetrinarian/street doc for the hippe commune.

Time left to live: 365 days.

Stats:

Race: Simulacra soldier type.

Attributes: Agility d6 Smarts d4 Spirit d10 Strength d8 Vigor d6

Skills: Fighting d10 (Short blades, unarmed, whips), Persuasion d10 (Seduction, charm, fast talk, debate), Stealth d6 , Notice d6, Streetwise (Corporate)

Charisma: 6 (8 against organics) ;Pace: d6 ; Parry: 7 ; Toughness: 5 Strain: 6, Firewall Rating: 4, Street Cred: 2

Hindrances: Heroic (major), Enemy Norrtech (minor), Loyal (minor)

Edges: Attractive, Very attractive.

Equipment: Executive decision entourage suite +6 (In the form of nice asian style dress)

Dominatrix pain whip: 2d6 vs spirit. Uses slow power.

Monofilament Butterfly swords +d6 ap6

Cheramic Butterfly swords +d6 ap2

Cyberware: Beutification treatment (+2 charisma), Tailored phermones (+2 charisma), Cyber arm chemical injector, Knowcomp (Streetwise)

Credits: 6.000

Drugs: Knockout 9 doses, Paralysis 4 doses, Lethal 2 doses.

[Willard]

I could go both ways, but it seems to me that occupational income and costs of living should occur at the same intervals and ideally at the same time.

Let's call them Englewood Dynamics. A small "consultant" with 20 or so employees, they operate drones on highly sensitive (and well paid) missions for the GLU and various corporations. Founder and CEO is Jack Evans, code name Black Falcon, a childhood friend of Almighty's. After a string of particularly disturbing missions I've decided to take a break and do something else for a while. For a bunch of reasons that's mainly been racing up until now.

[bladerunner_35]

How do you guys want to handle general cost of living? If you want to keep it simple, IZ1 has a list of what the monthly cost of living is depending on whether your lifestyle is Destitute, Poor, Modest, Moderately Well-Off, Wealthy, or Filthy Rich. Alternately, if you want to be more detailed, the equipment chapter has rules for calculating your rent based on the size and location of your home and a ton of subscription services that you can use to define exactly how your character lives in their downtime and how much it costs them to do so.

Well, it all depends if there will be some real ingame effect (mechanical or otherwise). If it's just fluff and moneysink I suggest we keep it simple. If it matters wether we have the weatherchannel or not then perhaps something more complex.

[nDervish]

Well, it all depends if there will be some real ingame effect (mechanical or otherwise). If it's just fluff and moneysink I suggest we keep it simple. If it matters wether we have the weatherchannel or not then perhaps something more complex.

Ah, good point. I'd probably prefer to run it as just fluff and money sink, although the equipment book does list a few food subscriptions on p.56 that have mechanical effects defined.

[Willard]

Returning with a look at the gear.

I'll wear an impact suite and underarmor for a total of 6 armor all around, I think, as well as some driving bonuses and what not. My jump bike is going to be a Yamada Keroke-X prepared with smoke launchers and mag-oil (really glad I got that with the job, it's an expensive beast). I'll pay for the first VCI level, as we discussed.

The drones are going to be two eyeborgs, two lone stars, one mini-mekmon and four transponders (one of which I'll already have installed on my bike). The raptor is really cool, but I realized I need to pay for the rockets separately and since they're both super expensive and count as military I'll just have to hold off on that.

I'm buying three weapons: a dart rifle, an AAK-94 and a riot shotgun. The latter I'll probably hang on to and load with epoxy ammo, while I'll load the others onto the lone stars. They can carry a weapon of up to 10lbs each. Maybe switch the dart rifle for the shotgun depending on the situation. I also look forward to picking up the weapons of our vanquished foes and putting them on some more drones in the near future, both the autocannons and energy weapons look really tempting.

This should leave me with approximately 15 thousand left in the bank for now. Without having seen the actual numbers I'm going to go for the "wealthy" costs of living. If it's really bad I'll just have to live off the bank account until we get going.

[nDervish]

Returning with a look at the gear.

It all looks reasonable.

One minor detail, though... Unless you guys are planning to take the bus everywhere, someone (not necessarily you) should probably get a vehicle with some passenger capacity. Including an extra seat for the upsized hybrid, one for Sebastian's mystery friend, and one for a damsel hitching a ride, you're going to need a minimum of seven seats to haul everyone around.

Without having seen the actual numbers I'm going to go for the "wealthy" costs of living. If it's really bad I'll just have to live off the bank account until we get going.

Wealthy is 10k/month. You've got a base income of 3k as a jump bike racer, plus another 12.5k from Rich, so you'll be coming out ahead by 5500 Cr/month.

[bladerunner_35]

Well, it all depends if there will be some real ingame effect (mechanical or otherwise). If it's just fluff and moneysink I suggest we keep it simple. If it matters wether we have the weatherchannel or not then perhaps something more complex.

Ah, good point. I'd probably prefer to run it as just fluff and money sink, although the equipment book does list a few food subscriptions on p.56 that have mechanical effects defined.

How about everyones base line is their cost of living/lifestyle and then anybody who wants to add some sazz into their lifes (and aren't already at wealthy or higher) can add what they want but are also expected to keep note of it themselves?

Also, perhaps this is already assumed but I would prefer if we abstract everyday expenses based on lifestyle and then everyone keeps track of their money for extra expenses. Meaning my character who will be poor is assumed to be able to buy some cheap food in a foodstall but if we for some reason go to eat at a fancy upscale restaurant I will have to pay from my own money. While Almighty who is wealthy would be assumed to be able to pay at the fancy restaurant and wouldn't need to track the purchase or substract any money from his extra expenses account. In fact he would probably be able to pay the whole groups tab without worrying about tracking money.

This would give our chosen lifestyle some in-game meaning while not really having to keep track of that much.

The extra expenses account would be used for buying weapons, vehicles, armour, cyber, equipment and the like. Basically everything the player would want the character to have on mission.

One thing we might need to decide upon is ammo. At wealthy Almight wouldn't need to worry about purchasing ammo and can just bring as much ammo as he wants on missions. Being poor my character can perhaps be assumed to have one spare clip to each weapon he owns but anything more than that would have to come from my extra expenses account. Any grenades or other one time use equipment/weapon would have to be replaced at my own expense.

A destitute character wouldn't be able to buy food at any but the cheapest/worst foodstalls (normally living of homemade food?) and need to buy all ammo.
A modest life style would have two extra clips to each weapon.
A moderately well off character would have up to three clips per weapon owned. And would be assumed to automatically replace any grenades or other one time use equipment/weapon he owns.

Something like that.

Perhaps it's time for you to start an page on Obsidian Portal so we can compile our houserules and stuff there Dave?

[nDervish]

How about everyones base line is their cost of living/lifestyle and then anybody who wants to add some sazz into their lifes (and aren't already at wealthy or higher) can add what they want but are also expected to keep note of it themselves?

Also, perhaps this is already assumed but I would prefer if we abstract everyday expenses based on lifestyle and then everyone keeps track of their money for extra expenses. Meaning my character who will be poor is assumed to be able to buy some cheap food in a foodstall but if we for some reason go to eat at a fancy upscale restaurant I will have to pay from my own money. While Almighty who is wealthy would be assumed to be able to pay at the fancy restaurant and wouldn't need to track the purchase or substract any money from his extra expenses account. In fact he would probably be able to pay the whole groups tab without worrying about tracking money.

Yep, that's all pretty much how I'd been thinking to do it under the simplified system.

One thing we might need to decide upon is ammo. At wealthy Almight wouldn't need to worry about purchasing ammo and can just bring as much ammo as he wants on missions. Being poor my character can perhaps be assumed to have one spare clip to each weapon he owns but anything more than that would have to come from my extra expenses account. Any grenades or other one time use equipment/weapon would have to be replaced at my own expense.

I'd prefer that everyone always has to pay for their ammo. It's not a normal lifestyle expense.

And regarding that... I was planning to let ammo tracking sit a little longer before going into it, but here's what I'm currently thinking:

Nobody had any objections to Clint's Modern Weapon Abstract Ammunition system, so we'll use that as a base. However, Interface Zero weapons have a lot of variation in ammo capacity and rates of fire, which I don't want to just throw away, so instead of every weapon having a base ammo capacity of 2 chips (ammunition levels/tokens), the base capacity is:

10 or fewer rounds: 1 chip
11-40 rounds: 2 chips
41+ rounds: 1 chip for every 20 rounds, rounded up

As in Clint's system, you can get an "extended magazine" variant of most weapons, which increases cost, weight, and ammo capacity by 50%.

For reloads, 5 ammo chips = 1 significant item and each chip costs as much as 20 rounds for the weapon normally would.

Because weapons with a low ammo capacity only get one ammo chip, Clint's shotgun rule (deplete ammo on roll of (number of shots + 1) or less) is ignored.

None of this applies to single-use items like grenades or missiles. They remain one-use-only.

A second, unrelated change: Gyroc weapons do not have a blast template. This is for two reasons:

1. I think it makes them too powerful. In Savage Worlds, area effect attacks completely ignore non-sealed armor. Even if your armor is sealed, they hit against the weakest area without imposing called-shot penalties.
2. The IZ materials make a big deal about gyroc pistols being the standard weapon of most security guards. If they have a Small Burst Template, that means every shot will destroy any valuable equipment within a 3-meter radius of where it hits, possibly also blowing holes in walls/floors/ceilings. If your guards are there to minimize losses to the company, that's highly counterproductive. And don't even think about using one on an intruder who's holding your head researcher hostage...

Perhaps it's time for you to start an page on Obsidian Portal so we can compile our houserules and stuff there Dave?

Yeah, that was in my plans for tomorrow.