THIS QUEST IS NEWBIE FRIENDLY

We now have a snappy new wiki so I can direct you to the plot summary there rather than trying to catch you up in one paragraph. You'll have a fairly thorough understanding of the entire quest so far in about twenty minutes, so reading the archives is less necessary than ever. Plot summary is here:

>http://ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/Plot_Summary

If you want to read the archive, that's here:

>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Super%20Villain%20Quest

Also, I apologize for the late start. While my longer hiatuses (and, incidentally, the late start yesterday) were because of real life getting in the way, today I just lost track of time. Oops.

File: 1348517356449.jpg-(1.46 MB, 1600x1162, Villain Quest Gang Map 2.jpg)

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 3 (9)
Resources: 21
XP: 5

Athletics: 1
Cunning: 3
Technology: 4
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: AI, Terminators, SynthSkin, Model T, Mechs, Mobile Dolls, Ghost Whisperer

>Link to rules (including powers list): http://pastebin.com/utmjLqag

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2

It is the first week of February. You have recently defeated Swordsman and completed Act I of the quest. There are no active events right now, so now's a good time to think about consolidation or expansion. It should also be mentioned that right now the strategy is to lay low as much as possible, since about a month ago you took some serious heat and you're trying to make sure its blown over before doing anything extreme.

There's also been suggested starting up legitimate businesses as a source of income, the mechanics of which I am still working on. I am open to suggestions in that regard.

Oh, and here's two more helpful wiki links for reference:

>http://ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/The_Iron_Guard

>http://ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Master%27s_Mechanized_Army

Thanks to Blackjack for the second one. I probably shouldn't have changed the main image on a day with a late start. Speaking of, I don't think I've mentioned the schedule for a while now. We go daily at 14:00 server time. When things go according to plan, at least.

This doesn't look like it's going to work out today, but I'll give it one more bump.

>>20854793
I'm here right now, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to stick around for more than an hour.

>>20854865

Get the game going and other people might join up.

I liked the plan of somewhat-legitimizing. Being able to make money in to nicer neighborhoods without having to turn them over to hookers and drugs would be awesome. That or, move into white-collar crimes - embezzlement and fraud seem sufficiently Lex Luthor-style villainy.

>>20854900
I got a project but I can roll for a few minutes

>>20854957

Most white collar crimes are divvied up between "extortion" and "robbery" because I didn't think of that approach until much later in the design, after I'd already statted out all the gangs and thus when rebalancing them all with a sixth crime would've been an enormous amount of work. Mechanically speaking, Robbery is just "crimes that require lots of rich people around to be profitable."

>>20854957
Also, cementing our relationship with Kestrel/Sofia is crucial, and this lull is perfect for making sure our investment doesn't go running off.

Also, she's pretty cool.

Also also, Rica deserves that Battle Doll after the nonsense she went through to kill the late police chief.

>>20854997
Ah, okay. I guess it isn't too important to dick around with yet, since it kind of seems like a late-game endeavor.

>>20854383
>There's also been suggested starting up legitimate businesses as a source of income, the mechanics of which I am still working on. I am open to suggestions in that regard.
I love the idea of starting our own company for like robotics or software, but for businesses with a similar idea to our illegals I was thinking like fast food, health food, bars, gyms, yoga... parlours?

As per what we can do with kestral, lets give her full disclosure on the serum, also lets get her a better suit, maybe even ask her about legitimizing.

As per Rica? We do have that spare corpse somewhere...

>>20855123

Upgrading Kestrel's suit means giving her powers, which means spending some XP. Turning her into Swordsman would be pretty costly.

Also, minor rules tweak, the cost on bumping your ACTIONS or attributes is being reduced to half of whatever the new score would be, so raising something from 3 to 4 now only costs 2 XP. In retrospect, it's ridiculous to expect anyone to spend 4 XP on raising an ACTION to "generally pretty awesome but not amazing" when the same amount can get you dozens of robot minions or a really awesome fire attack. Normally I'd wait for a proper rules update for this, but since it's a buff and not a nerf and you have XP to spend right now, I decided to go ahead with it.

>>20855171
Maybe put creating swordsman 2.0 off then, though I do wonder, we have his suit so do we get a discount or anything on those powers?

>>20855261

That would make sense, yes. Gimme a bit to figure out how to make that work.

>>20855005

Did you have any specific methods of cementing your relationship with Kestrel in mind?

>>20855355
> cementing your relationship with Kestrel
Give Steve a vibrating... you know.
I mean lets back her crime fighting and become that bro who raised her from the dead and that supplies her with all the coolest toys.
I mean were already that creepy (old?) guy that stole her body from the morgue.

>>20855426

I imagine the Iron Master as being late twenties, personally.

Turning it over in my head, I've decided that recovering the Swordsman suit will just give you the same 50% XP discount that Project Beachhead gave, but only with regards to upgrading a pre-existing suit, like Kestrel's. This stacks with the 50% discount for buying powers for someone else, rounded down, to a minimum of 1 XP per power. So...

Maximum flight will cost 1 XP.
Maximum speed will cost 1 XP.
Giving her the super strength will cost 2 XP.
Giving her the super durability will cost 2 XP.
Energy powers are going to cost 2 XP.
The sensor suite will cost 2 XP.

>>20855676
Give her the Strength and Flight for now, then we'll save up the rest for ourselves. Daddy needs a mechagodzilla.

>>20855718

Alright, you recreate part of the Swordsman Serum (a cocktail of all kinds of different enhancers, the majority of the time spent on its development by EdenTech being dedicated to preventing them from interfering with each other) and rebuild Kestrel's suit to work with enhanced strength, also building the feathers direct into her back as in the Swordsman suit rather than attaching them to wings, which increases her top speed. The feathers on the wings are replaced with pure blades, the sort of thing Swordsman's sword was made out of, since Kestrel has gotten rather used to using those things as a shield or a weapon.

That leaves you with 2 XP.

>>20855819
Oh, now that we have the suit, can't we back engineer the energy powers (lasers) from it, or do we need the project photon (sorry, can't remember names right now) data that Chimera has?

>>20855819
And lets throw that into savings for now, when we have more players.
Now how are our gangs doing?

>>20855922

It's in the middle of your turn, so the wiki link to the Iron Guard should be accurate.

>>20855869

You'll need the data. It's *possible* without, but you'd have to sink actions into reverse-engineering it until you hit a TN of 15, which is going to take a while even with your crazy Tech score (well, probably).

>>20855958
Perfect, this wiki is really useful!
Avalon Legion, and Steel Legion are pretty bummed

>>20855958
if we do, we get multiple bonuses if we get both Mick and Steve to help us?

>>20855819
>>20855958
Oh, whoops I'm late. Create Hacker bot from the wiki. Then have him crash chimera's network.
Note: don't buy kestral any abilities from the meta human abilities set, as we can get them ourselves, then give them to her for resources, which are much easier to come by.

>>20856021
>http://ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/The_Iron_Guard

When a set has taken Morale damage, it'll be written as a fraction (like 3/5 or whatever). If it's just a plain number, that means the set is at its current maximum Morale. Sets that make a lot of money tend to have low Morale and go under easily.

>>20856024

No. You do get the bonus from Mick, but mechanically speaking Steve is just a terminator.

>>20856059
And by crash, I mean locate the stealth plane, and any info they have on mathew and Dr span

>>20856071

I can't remember why I put that link in there.

>>20856059
For legitimate businesses. First make us aquire a product that would give us a chance to make inroads into the marketplace. An example of this would be the cancer serium, which can be produced and used to cure rich amputees

Spy bots everywhere for stealth plane, and then suicide pigeons and AA mechs. Wish the stealth jet had turbines, just so the pigeons could get sucked in and detonate

>>20856059
any chance we can cancel the super strength upgrade, then use the four xp to get ourselves metaspeed, then give her the upgrade for 3 resources?

>>20856076

Kestrel gives you the location of a couple of potential Chimera hideouts, and you send your shiny new hacker mech to investigate. You're able to find Chimera's network and hack in by physically tapping into their electronics from the outside (you have to tear apart a bit of the wall to get to them) under the cover of night. Although this network has very little information on things outside of the local project (it's just a garrison for keeping an eye on the Stalkers), you're able to get the location of their local headquarters, which should have personnel files and dossiers on just about everyone important. Odds are they'll still have Matthew Lagrange, whether he was working for them or not.

It's a bit easier cracking into the next Chimera network (and sneaking past regular grunts when you have Stealth 6 is almost a sure thing), since you now have an idea of how their defenses work. From their local headquarters you're able to get everything they know on Matthew Lagrange...But it's not much. The file is just called "Swordsman" and it looks like they didn't even know his name until it came out publicly. There's a lot of data on how to bring him down (their main strategy was to use concentrated machinegun fire to damage the feathers on his back and then blow him up with rockets from a distance once he was grounded, and they weren't really sure if it would be effective).

Certainly there's no trace of him being a Chimera agent.

>>20856269

She already has Meta Speed.

>>20856300

Although, if you want to reverse an XP choice this soon after making that it's fine with me.

>>20856410
We can if the others want to

Hm. I'll need to be leaving soon. This thread is probably not worth archiving. Hopefully it'll work better tomorrow and I'll actually get it started on time.

I just read the summary and this sounds amazing.

>>20855718
I reccomemd against buying mechagodzilla, ever for a bunch of reasons. First, there aren't actually any rules about how the thing works. Second, it will draw the attention of every hero in the city, which never works out well for us. Plus the goverment might get snippy, and those guys are actually compitent in this world.

>>20856300
Can we have her statline? I'm willing to bet we could have figured it out by now a bunch of different ways.

>>20856841
True. I find that part completely unrealistic though.
The government competent? The fuck?

>>20857060
To be fair, US military is scarily compitent at smashing anyone stupid enough to give them a target

>>20857095
Not to mention that they probably have military grade supers in this setting.

I can't really stick around to actually run this thing for about an hour yet, but I thought I'd pop in and respond to some stuff. If nothing else, keeping this thread alive overnight means that we can just keep using this one, since it has, what 20 or 30 posts?

Concerning mechagodzilla: It doesn't have exact stats yet, but it is going to have stats once you build one. Vaguely I know it's going to be absurdly hard to kill. It's Mechagodzilla, so it can reasonably take on absurdly powerful organizations like the military. Points about it drawing a lot of attention are valid, though. Mechagodzilla is not super-helpful for defeating individual supers, just becuase it's too easy to hide from something that much bigger than you.

Regarding government competence, partially this is because SWAT teams have stuff to actually do in this world because they are super villains, so they need to be ready to actually back up supers in brawls rather than arresting drug users who don't even resist. There's also the fact that, as mentioned, the government even in real life is really good at destroying things and is mostly incompetent because they're terrible at picking targets. This is mostly true in the Iron Master world as well. Outside of Guadian, you've not once seen significant opposition from detectives or policies or anything else other than raw force.

>>20856293
Did we discover where the stealth plane is being hidden?
Furthermore, make some contact lenses for kestral. I want them to give her targeting data from the skyfire mechs. We leak the location to the city (not through kestral) she and the cops raid the place. Our skyfire's tell her where the cloaked ship if from a safe distance. She krumps it good. If she needs help, we can always use the skyfires to fire a few anti air missiles at it.
Note with telescopic x-ray vision, an observation score of 9, and high stealth, they can spy of buildings from a distance very well.

Well, this took an hour longer than expected, but I'm back for a bit if anyone wants to go at the quest or just ask some questions about it or whatever. Mostly I want this thread to still be around in ~13 hours so that when I start it up for tomorrow I won't have to make a new one.

>>20860584
First, bump.
Second a note about game balance: our current henchmen have a power stat of 0, which means they can never be combat effective normally. I rather hope we kept strikes body in a freezer somewhere if only for her power score. So I was wondering, how do henchmen advance actions? Do they have their own "events" relating to their character arc that will give them a chance to get better?
Oh, and I would argue that we are still sneaky on occasion, just look at what we put Chimera through.

since we are on the topic of having some legit businesses, get Julio's input, OP said he imagined The Iron Master at what 20 something, Julio's been around for a bit and he knows business ask about any businesses we could look into, starting or reacquiring. also:
>>20855123 OH SHIT, Get Strikers body and give it some of that delicious Cancer serum,
new body for Rica!!

>>20863207
Striker?
That was a few months ago, that one is dead and buried for sure

However, with a SCIENCE team, they could artifically reconstruct a body from the ground up with things like a strengthened bone structure, laser eyes, and other things, it wouldnt be possible for a person to actually exist like that, but Rica can possess an empty shell...

Maybe we should solidify partnerships with other supers?
We're pretty good with the Daimyo, but giving Cat a reason to work with us (Maybe research where she'd rob next, and send in the beefy stealth mech to swipe it first and leave a note?), or the Bouncer a steady base where we feels comfortable (gangers, hookers, and big cars we've got in spades so he wont feel like he'd bee selling out the hood)
If we can get supers directly working for us, we get more of that human element.

>>20863379
easiest way to do that is to buy powers from the metahuman ability set, then use our ability to buy powers for others for resources to sell/gift them to other villains. We obviously can't give them really good stuff like super strength or speed but peak level powers are a different story.

Also, idea for a new crime tactic, good from thefts and ambushes

Breaching the GAP.
Synthed Terminators are made to look like mannequins, any location that would have them are now ideal locations for guard posts, ambush sites, and robbery locations.

Imagine this, a Chimera strike team has attacked Julio while we was on a management run in legion turf, Legion backup is still a ways away and he ducks into a Target's to try and lose them. They follow after him, starting to close in on him. A Chimera thug cuts through Sporting Goods to catch him in Toys. He passes a mannequin holding a golf club raised high, and doesnt even notice the 9 iron drop down on his neck. Reinforcements had arrived.

Oh, and our hacking should help us get location of Chimera's weapons and armor cashes too right? Lets rob em.

>>20862970

The original idea was that you'd upgrade by getting new henchmen, not by making the ones you have more awesome. Everything about upgrading your own guys was something patched in later. In retrospect, considering dialogue and characterization are miles ahead of my prose, setting, and plot, this wasn't a very good idea, but it's really hard to tweak the balance now.

>>20863268

Strike's body was retrieved by the Iron Master (though I'm not sure why anyone thought that would make it easier to bring her back, Deathless doesn't require a body), so presumably you just have it soaking in formaldehyde somewhere.

>>20864108
Picking an open fight with people who can "likely pull in multiple villains on a whim" seems like a really bad idea to me. I prefer our current strategy of repeatedly messing with them from the shadows.
>>20865352
Oh, okay. Did our hacking get us any info on project photon, and agies or the location of the stealth aircraft?

>>20865352
Probably because they thought that if just posses a random normal human, you lose your power and athletics score. And there goes your combat capability.

>>20865352
My idea about saving her body was trying to use SCIENCE and treknobabble to bring her back.
As it was said, a simple blade to the heart, one clean cut, killed her. At that point it was a race, repairing the internal damage and jump starting the brain was all it would take to bring her back if we did it fast enough, otherwise brain synasps would decay and rot without oxygen.
Despite attempts, all focus went to Kestral's death, and then we did a sudden time skip. So saving Strike then was out the window, her brain would've long been dead.

>>20865352
My bad, I thought thought that the Cancer Serum was could bring back the dead only rendered in effective if the body was heavily destroyed

>>20865442

I do time skips a lot, but usually only when it looks like no one wants to do anything for a while. For future reference, if you want to do something and missed the opportunity because of a timeskip, just tell me after the timeskip happens and I can reverse things before we move on.

>>20865414

No, they keep their networks very separate from one another and you hit the one that was easiest to get into but would still have information on Swordsman. More sensitive data is going to be in more heavily guarded networks, located in more heavily guarded facilities.

>>20865521
I did.
I even said, Hey if we move fast enough and repair the damage, we can use our crazy technology whozits to revive her. At the time of the time skip, several months, i was disheartened and focused on the kestral and swordbreaker situation. (And you're telling me this now)

>>20865553
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/20635086/#p20643145
>"No, Strike's corpse. I can uncorpse it if we get it quick enough, the bots aren't enough on their own, go, hurry, Okata's got Swordsman distracted," you say.

You even were going with it.

>>20865521
I didn't exactly expect to find the actual data, more indications on where they are. Did we at least get an idea as to where their more heavily guarded facilities are? Because if we did, I think it's time for the skyfire mechs to take a very discrete nighttime look. They have enhanced vision and a very high observation score. I imagine they can discern if the building has the stealth aircraft from very far away.

>>20865553

What? There's never been a timeskip longer than a week in length. It would mean running multiple turns of the gang management game in the background. That's never happened.

>>20865584

The Iron Master says what you think, regardless of whether or not it's wrong.

>>20865587

Yeah, the headquarters for the Logistics Division is where you're going to find the Photon and Aegis data, that's where they're building the stuff. It's guarded by the First Aggressor Division, though, who aren't going to be easy to sneak past.

It's harder to say about the stealth aircraft. It's not immediately obvious from the outside which building holds it, because all that's really needed is a warehouse big enough to house the thing, and that describes several Chimera hideouts. It's safe to say it'll be somewhere with the Logistics Division, though...Unless it's finished, in which case one of the two Aggressor Divisions will have it.

>>20865646
does Enhanced vision give us the ability to see through walls? I kinda always assumed that x-ray vision was part of the package...

I have an idea for our legit cover business. The plan is two fold.

First we find a company that already exists. Some kind of cybernetic/bionic research firm. We synth up an extremely realistic robot, complete with organically grown components rather than a metal core. I'm new to this quest so I don't know if we even have that capability, but we if we do, then it would be the way to go. Anyway, this synthskinned false human would use our funds to buy a majority of the company, and our knowledge to improve it's designs and capabilities, making bionic limb replacement a truly viable option for people. If this succeeds, then in what, 5 years(?) people walking around the city with robotic replacements and robotic internal organs wouldn't be so surprising. If we had an enemy that could xray vision for that stuff or something, then it would be a lot more difficult for them to separate our guys from a standard Joe on the street with new bionic implants.

The 2nd part would include us, perhaps Sterling himself, starting another, new company from the ground up. It would be a standard R&D Engineering firm. Similar to Stark Enterprises or whatever. This one would happen later than the bionic company, with the plan being that the sudden boom of the first company taking everyone else's attention away from us as we start up our little business.

>>20865646
But it was a matter that Strike's corpse was ignored since then.
I'm the only one that seem to have had the idea to revive her by repairing the damage. And im not always here for the start of the quests. Because the Iron Master seemed to have had the idea, my idea, and mentioned it, he already had an idea of what to try.
The time skip, him attempting to kickstart Strike's brain shortly after she'd arrived at the lair, moving fast so as to prevent severe oxygen failure to the brain and subsequent brain damage, induce cortical steriods and low powered lasers placed inside to either repair, or even replace, her heart with a technologically enhanced implant. He get her lungs pumping and keep her body going with an implanted charge pulse to keep her body's bioelectricity up while getting her heart beating again.

>>20865765
Dude, if you're the only one who had the idea to do something, and get mad when it doesn't happen especially when you're not there all the time, you can't really get upset when things don't go exactly how you want.

On that part, doing something with the body does sound like a pretty good idea.

>>20865711

No. It lets you ignore a lot of penalties, but it doesn't do much beyond that.

>>20865765

Okay, so sometimes you aren't around for the quest and then your voice doesn't get heard and your plans might get ignored. That kind of sucks, but that's an inherent limitation of the medium. Next time you might try telling people your *entire* plan, not just the very first step, seeing as you are not playing this game alone.

>>20865740
Add in a back door or something into the bionics.
Bionic eyes? Goatse.cx.
Bionic arm? Stop hitting yourself!
Bionic legs? Walking off cliffs is a lot of fun!
Bionic heart/lung/other vital organ? kthnxbye!

Could even be subtle. Add a "key-logger" into the bionic hands, you now have all their passwords AND you can perfectly fake their signatures.

>>20865850
Well, since you'd mentioned rewinding things shortly in the event of a time skip, why dont we attempt that now then? A rehabilitation period when Strike's body repairs itself after her death would be reasonable explaining her absence.

Plus i like the idea of superheroes thinking the Iron Master is some more of master of life and death when Kronos sees Strike and Kestral walking around again.

>>20865897
Wasn't the idea that we go super visible with our robotics so that others don't notice our necromantic powers? The less they know, the less they're prepared.

>>20865850
Okay, that sucks. We need to take out that stealth plane as fast as possible. Have rica try to posses one of the chimera working in warehouses. (presumably one of them is going to have to outside for a bit). She should then go inside and try to see if the stealth plane is there. Once she has discerned that, she'll have a tragic workplace accident.

>>20865918
Well sure, some Superheros would think that until we tell them we didnt go to evil medical school and evil private pratice just to let one little knife wound slow us down.
It isnt magic, it's medicine.

>>20865931
basic plan:
1. figure out where the stealth plane is being hidden.
2. leak it subtly to the cops. (not through kestral)
3. They'll call in kestral and plan a raid.
4. We provide covert assistance to kestral during the raid. (Make some contacts that lets our bots act as spotters.

>>20865951
If it became known that we had a proven, reliable way to bring people back to life, everyone would try to steal the secret.

>>20865985
You mean a method that is very risky and might just have someone in a coma instead until their mind themselves pulls them out of it?

A mind and a body is only brain activity. Keep the mind working and a 'soul' still persists.

>>20866026
I'm talking about the necromancy bit. I thought our end goal was to use the deathless power + clones to create the Asgard from SG1.

>>20866053
Doesnt mean simple medical science should be thrown out the window when it is still very current technology opposed to our as of right now nonexistant cloning tech (for now)

>>20865931

Rica seems to have some really solid luck with possessing people lately. Hopefully that luck won't reverse like it did last time. Regardless, she's able to walk back into the warehouse, trying to look ambiguously busy. Not in this warehouse, so she has the guy accidentally trip off of a high place and land on his neck, which comes with the added bonus of not being an agonizingly painful way to exit the body.

The process repeats a couple of times. It usually takes a few hours of floating around, waiting for a guy to come out alone and then trying to possess him, usually failing and then waiting for someone else.

Eventually, she finds one warehouse where a guard stops her and pulls out a retina scanner. "Need a scan," he says, and then, after checking the results, he asks "password?"

"Uh...Fuck this," Rica says, punching him in the gut and sprinting inside, sliding her host's keycard into the slot and then bursting through the door. She sprints down the office halls and into the main warehouse floor, where she can see the aircraft entering cloak. The host doesn't last long after that, and she is painfully flung out of the building by anti-ghost defenses afterwards, but she found it, and it's in a Logistics facility so it probably isn't capable of shooting missiles yet. That's definitely a plus.

>>20866181
How can she possess people? Could she always do it? Or just since we brought her back to life?

>>20866181
Send some really small hacker bots to the location to cut into their security systems. When we attack, have them switch all that shit and the lights off.

>>20866202
Yes, since we brought her back to 'life' or rather, made Deathless, she is a lich like ghost that can possess living, dead, and inanimate forms depending on mental willpower she could fail.

>>20866181
Okay, time to leak it to the police, very carefully and anonymously. But first, make those contracts for Kestral. Once they mount the raid, hopefully at night, we can make sure she can "see" the plane when it tries to escape.

>>20866216
Let the cops take care of it. We don't want an open war with Chimera (yet). Plus this way, Kestral will cross an important line. She'll be letting us chose her target and provide active (albeit covert) help during that mission.

>>20866181
Have some surveillance bots there asap.
The aircraft may be cloaked but they still need to open the hangar doors for it to leave. Then tip off team blue of it's location. Have them do the heavy lifting. If it goes according to plan team blue will do the work, AND they get to capture some bad guys which hopefully will reduce the police heat as they remove one of the larger threats to the city.

>>20866280
And if were really lucky we can nab the tech from the building. There may be some records or hell even schematics there.
Alert team blue, alert the police, and call JJJ it's going to be an exciting weekend.

Okay, exactly how much are you telling Kestrel about all this?

>>20866336
This time im up for letting her know first, but make sure we leave out the bit of possessing and killing people to learn that info. Also make sure she gets a whole group together to raid Chimera, I dont want her running off on her own and making it so we have to directly intervene.
Can't have her die infront of people again, the Cancer excuse will only work a few times.

>>20866391

That raises another question. Do you want to reverse the decision to give Kestrel Super Strength and full flight? Because you won't be able to reverse it after this point, for obvious reasons.

>>20866405
Your asking the guy who gave her them last night. Let the others decide if they're still here.

>>20866444

Alright, I'll give that about ten minutes, then.

>>20866405
At the very least, she will need that full flight to catch up to the damn thing. Instead of giving her super strength, buy peak and meta strength, then give her meta strength from resources.

>>20866453
JJ and Strike revive anon, i say go for it too.
But be careful Kestral, you dont manafest more powers overnight, you bring Amp (if he is moving yet) and Behemoth around, and you show faster flight speed, and super strength? They'll notice. But like hell you're going in there without support, and hero support is what you need on a high profile raid like this.

Rolled 87

>>20866405
just giver her the 2 cheapest up grades and leave it at that she inset even all that loyal to us and we brought her back from the dead that's a fucking lot to do for her

than get some lazer guns for our robot army

also could we make Mechagodzilla, stealthy make a huge flying sub/space ship instead

>>20866405
No reversing.

>>20866462
Im going to second this, we could always use meta strength.

>>20866336
make sure we are feeding this through the police, to deflect suspicion that Kestral is working for us.

>>20866529
Well, actually, is Meta Strength an option or does it have to be Super given that's what Swordsman had? Would it cost 1XP instead of Super's 2 with all the reductions?

>>20866529
First rule of this quest: never pay in XP what you can pay in Resources

>>20866550
see
>>20855676

can the sensors upgrade allow Kestral to detect the stealth ship?

if not just dump strength flight and maximum speed she is going to need them to keep up with it after all.

>>20866550
Heck, swordsman never even had super speed, and we can give that to her it seems. Doing it this way means that we won't spend any of our XP just 2 resources. We have 21 resources and gain 15 more every in game week.

>>20866572
bah meant dump the strength upgrade and just do flight and maximum speed. Damn typo.

Hrm. We seem kind of split between people who want to buy Meta Strength for the Iron Master and then give it to Kestrel with resources and those who want to give her Super Strength. So, roll d20 for it.

is there anyway we don't have to spend xp? that shit is a pain in the ass to get and i would rather purchase it for ourselves than our minions so its cheaper.

>>20866599
in that case i vote for purchasing it for the Iron Master that way we can also give it other minions besides Kestral. Better long term option in my opinion.

Rolled 15

>>20866599
Hmmm... Let's go ahead and buy Meta for us and then Resource it to Kestrel.

>>20866599
Actually, buy meta strength. worth it to boost the IM's own power. Plus now we can carry more of our own weight.

Rolled 3

>>20866603
see
>>20866599
rolling for the meta option

>>20866550

Meta is indeed an option.

"How certain are you that this will work?" you ask Dr. Rud.

"Nearly positive. I'd give it a 95% chance of success," he says. "Worst case scenario, you get some tumors. Which we will cut out."

You take a deep breath, and then tap the command to begin the injection. Probably you could've just shot up yourself, but it's much cooler to have a robot arm do it for you. And more precise. The needle stings, and you feel strange inside, at first a little bit sick, but soon afterwards, healthier than you've ever been.

You pass the upgrade on to Kestrel as well, along with the upgraded flight capability.

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 3 (9)
Resources: 17
XP: 0

Athletics: 1
Cunning: 3
Technology: 4
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: Meta Strength, AI, Terminators, SynthSkin, Model T, Mechs, Mobile Dolls, Ghost Whisperer

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 1/2

>>20866682
And now we ruin chimera's day.

>>20866682
just waiting on Chimera raid, not thinking of more input, go ahead

Rolled 96

>>20866706
steel everything form them rip the copper plumbing out of their burning wreckage the fillings from there teeth.

>>20867029
i sincerely hope thats a loot roll and op decides to use it.

Sorry this is taking a while. A thing came up in the middle of all the rolling. Good to go now, though, will have results in a bit.

Chimera's almost getting used to the routine by now, police burst in through the door, a few guys lay down some suppressive fire while everyone else packs things up and heads out in a hurry, punch through the barricades outside while the stealth craft flies off.

"It's in the air," cops on the ground say to Kestrel.

"Alright," she says, flipping on the HUD in her new contacts. "Come on..." For several tense seconds, there is silence. And then a tiny blip, a single square-inch giving off an incredible heat signature for just a few seconds. But it's all the Skyfire mechs need to lock on to the thing and give Kestrel something to chase after.

It's got a headstart, and all it has to do is outpace the Skyfires and it will disappear again, but Kestrel is just a little bit faster than the stealth craft in her new suit. She lands on it, places an explosive charge on its hull, and then feels her way around to some place that feels safe while apparently screaming along on thin air.

The charge detonates, but doesn't seem to do much damage. "Don't think I hit anything important, but you can see it now, right?" Kestrel says into her radio.

The police scan the sky for a few moments. "Yeah, we've got smoke! Quick, follow that trail!"

The craft pulls up higher, hoping to get above cloud cover and lose the police following them below, when a voice crackles over the radio. "Drop altitude! There are fighters in the sky! Repeat, get low immediately, there are fighters in the sky!"

The craft plunges downward, heading for the cover of the steel canyon below, while Kestrel detonates another charge, more of the craft's cloak ripped off by the explosion. The craft rolls and rocks side-to-side to try and shake her off, but she grabs hold of the holes punched by the charges, the metal bending and warping as her newly granted Meta Strength holds her to the craft. Ultimately, however, it's too much, and she slips off as it dives between the skyscrapers, flying off the craft and through a window, tumbling through desks and chairs as she crashes through an office building. Pulling herself painfully to her feet, she preps another charge and jumps out the opposite window, landing on the craft again, and soon after blowing another hole in it.

"We're losing altitude," the Chimera pilot says, "give me a landing point, this thing is coming down."

"Roger that, head for warehouse 17, it'll be prepped for landing in ninety seconds," the voice says over the comms.

"Copy that, heading for warehouse 17," the Chimera pilot responds. The craft adjusts course and begins heading back towards Long Beach.

>>20867354
Want to ruin Chimer'a day and fly jack their stealth craft, 'fending off' kestral with more fliers?

"There's fighters up there," Kestrel says as the craft leaves the cover of the taller buildings, "I can see him. Are they going to shoot this thing down? Should I leave?"

"No," the police say from the other side, "they say it's too low to make the shot safely, if they miss, they'll hit the city."

"Got it, I'm gonna follow this thing down," she says.

"We'll be able to follow the trail of smoke anyway, get off that thing and regroup with us," the cop says.

"Chimera can evacuate a warehouse in three minutes, if someone doesn't keep them busy when this thing lands, you're going to show up and find an empty frame and Chimera will have rebuilt it in a month, tops," Kestrel says, "just stay as close as you can and be ready to get me some backup in a hurry."

Kestrel braces herself for impact, and the craft tears straight through the thin walls of the warehouse, skidding across the floor until it grinds to a halt. Kestrel leaps off as it lands, looking around for cover as Chimera grunts ready their weapons.

>>20867421
wat

>>20867421

None of your mechs or bots can fly.

>>20867432
Get one of our terminators to fetch some popcorn, this is quality entertainment. And we don't even have to work for it!

>>20867421
fun fact, we don't have any flight capability.

>>20867433
Swear that made more sense when i typed it out.
Ruin Chimera's day more but sending up flight capable mechs which highjack the stealth craft mid air
However, with air force or navy fighters in the sky now, it makes it a lot tougher to do so. She'll need back up in a hurry though.

Reading back, i saw something that freaked me out a bit.
A scrap built IGuard fought with swordsman just before he killed Kestral. It wasnt ours, and likely wasnt Edentech's either.
Dr Phan, (Or perhaps the Artificer using whatever scrap he could get, in the tower) he saw his daughter die. We still really need to find him.

>>20867432
Huh, I'm sort of surprised that every other super in the city is sitting this one out.

>>20867529
We give her no open backup. Maybe have Rica give her a hand via possession shenanigans, but no further. Plus, our current bot setup sucks in open combat.

>>20867529
FINALLY someone else noticed the scrap IGuard i mentioned it before but everyone else seemingly forgot about it.

>>20867594
I mean, it might've been the Artificer, he's very-
>Project Strider was headed by Doctor Dandurand
Or maybe he's not as dead as we think.
Look more into him later, where'd he live before, what was the way behind his 'vanishing' May he saw how his chips were falling, grabbed what he could and beat feet?

The Chimera goons open fire, but Kestrel's speed is more than enough to leave them behind, and coupled with her newly enhanced strength, she's able to toss goons through walls and piles of sensitive electrical equipment that probably stings to get thrown through. The Chimera grunts try to pack up the equipment, including several half-finished mechs, and Kestrel focuses on intercepting them and preventing the evacuation. "Hey, you're stealing the Iron Master's schtick!" she says, "is there no honor among thieves?" The Chimera grunt's response is mostly to groan in pain as Kestrel dislocates his shoulder.

Kestrel looks around the warehouse for anyone else headed towards the stealth craft, which is still trailing smoke. Doors from the office area burst open and a pair of Chimera strike troopers step out. Their weapons hum to life, and a moment later bolts of plasma sear through the air, Kestrel diving out of the way just in time to avoid being ignited like the crates immediately behind where she had been standing. She takes cover behind the craft, which the troopers are much less willing to take potshots at, and says into her radio "so, yeah, backup would be good. When is that coming?"

At which point a pickup truck is tossed through the wall, crashing into the warehouse and sending the strike troopers diving for cover. "Same time as always," Behemoth says, dusting off his hands as he steps through the hole, "right on cue."

>>20867542

Kestrel's the only one who can fly.

>>20867758
This might be a good time to send some hacker-bots over to covertly steal their data while chimera is occupied with the supers.

>>20867814
Love it, make it happen, steal the data, activate the half finished Mechs that can function, steal any good ones that arnt.

After disabling their IFF, so they attack Everything.

Kestrel steps away from the craft as Behemoth lifts it onto its side, then punches it in the direction of the strike troopers, tearing half the building apart as it goes. "I guess you haven't really saved the city until you've destroyed half of it," Kestrel says, scything her legs underneath a strike trooper and yoinking the gun from his hands.

"You know it!" Behemoth shouts, tossing a bit of debris into the other trooper.

"Give that back!" the trooper fighting Kestrel says, dropping into a low stance and making a grab for it.

"Uh, no," Kestrel responds, dancing around him to plant a roundhouse kick into the back of his head which drops him to the ground. A few more bolts of plasma streak through the air, hitting Behemoth, who groans in pain and anger, tossing another bit of debris at the troopers who have come pouring in through the massive hole left in the wall, as Chimera reinforcements arrive. "They're not letting this thing go easily," Kestrel says, taking cover.

"And I'm pretty sure I already totaled it," Behemoth says, taking cover next to her.

"I think you're right. Time to back off," Kestrel says, as even now the sound of police sirens can be heard in the distance.

>>20867814
To add to this we should try to figure out exactly what chimera knows about us. And alter it to be a red herring for team blue before they find it.

Hey op u asked about some ideas to beef up nature and earth powers. I have some ideas

Nature powers suggestions
Dire- beefs up and empowers a animal/plant making them stronger, tougher, smarter ect.
Symbiotic- able to combine animal/plant abilities and adaptations(plants are now animals and vice versa) depending on how long the subject was affected determines the strength of the effects.
Toxin- able to craft a variety types of poisons that can outright cripple or even kill a Super.
Senses of the swarm- able to see and hear what vermin can see and hear, also effects living minions if any.
Pheromones- able to produce/replicate and create pheromones. Examples types Rage a pheromone that inexplicably causes a target to rage attacking anything nearby. Targeted victim exudes rage pheromone/attraction causing nearby individuals to rage and target this individual. Persuasion pheromone Surprise Surprise user is much more persuasive. Tracker target exudes a pheromone that is easily tracked and only by the Nature Super or one of their minions who are also capable of it.

>>20867825

The Logistics Division is very deep in Chimera territory. Your mechs are going to have some difficulty getting there, but it'll never be easier than it is right now. Chimera is going berserk over this, and things are beginning to threaten to turn into another real firefight. A pickup truck with a tarp-covered bed happens to spot one mech on the way, the tarp goes flying off to reveal the thing is a technical, and the bot gets shredded by gunfire. Another bot gets hit by an anti-tank missile from a passing pair of Chimera grunts rushing to evacuate warehouse 17. A third just gets surrounded by a squad of grunts with assault rifles and gunned down.

The last one, however, arrives intact and hidden. The battle between the SWAT and Chimera is in full force, Behemoth and Kestrel having regrouped with them to try and drive Chimera away from the wreckage of the stealth craft before they can retrieve anything important. You're in hacking range, but it's anyone's guess how long anything hackable will last in the middle of all this. In what order do you want to hack the various things that you plan on hacking?

>>20867998
Earth power suggestions

tunnel- able to travel underground including rock or earth cannot however dig through metal(doesnt mean you can't figure out way through just can't use this power to do so).
rock/mud- able to turn rock or earth to mud/sand sucking down enemies and turn it to rock or vice versa.
Earth Elemental(could work with other elemental types as well)- able to summon/create a earth/rock elemental servant/minion

AND thats all i got

>>20868001
what are our options?
Stealth tech ( then we can pop up almost anywhere and steal more later) Any files on us, project photon data(if we can grab it from here) and personnel flies and possible locations for the good doctor anything else folks my choices havn't been the best for this game as of lately

>>20868001
the tech they stole from Edentech
stealth ship tech
Info on their operation
Info they have on us/other supers(including whatever plans and strategies they have in mind)
Info on their oversees operations

>>20868001
priority:
1) File on iron master - retrieve and alter to give misleading information (assuming the police are going to go look through the data after the firefight)
2) Info on the stealth system.
3) Other secret projects.

>>20868094

Well, you don't really know yet. But what's been brought up has been:

1) Personnel files, especially any information they have on you.

2) Their stealth system.

3) Projects Aegis and Photon that they stole from EdenTech.

4) Their plans in general.

Also, everyone's got a different plan, so let's roll d20 for it.

>>20868100
This after swaping 1 and 2

Hmm, we probably don't have the muscle for it, but now might be a good time for a small territory grab.

Rolled 1

>>20868261
2
3
1
4

In that order

Rolled 9

>>20868100

>>20868266
You roll d20s here, right?

Rolled 13

>>20868266
>>20868405

...

Rolled 51

>>20868099
rolling for this

Rolled 6

>>20868452
oops used 1d100 now using d20

>>20868100

Looks like we're going with this, then.

The battle is intensifying, but you're able to crack into their dossiers quickly. The Logistics Division doesn't have a whole lot of information in this regard, most of the strategic stuff is kept in the Aggressor Divisions (both of whom should have copies of mostly the same data in that regard), but you do find the file on yourself. Where you learn that Chimera has its fingers in all sorts of businesses they don't actually run or rely on throughout Long Beach, and as such have a very short list of engineers who might potentially be you. Smith Sterling, your name, is at the top of that list, seeing as how you'd mysteriously quit soon after the Iron Master got started. You quickly rewrite the data to point to some random other guy.

Unfortunately, you're not able to hack anything else before some stray bullets destroy the computer you're cracking and kill the connection.

The battle doesn't go very well for Chimera afterwards. They spend a lot of time fighting around the wreckage of the craft before pulling back and the streets go quiet again. They're ripped a few things out, but it's not yet known how important they were. It could've just been stuff that was in the way of what they wanted, or it could've been exactly what they needed. Either way, you won't be hearing from that aircraft for a while, at least.

>>You quickly rewrite the data to point to some random other guy.

Great, any of their analysts that are familiar with this file and survive the battle will conclude we are the IM after seeing our revisions...

damn i wanted some tech upgrades have the bot pick up some energy weapons on its way out, if possible check out the stealth ship remains for any important looking pieces as well.

>>20868667
This is assuming we're a good enough hacker to cover our tracks.

Find another computer, we need more data.

>>20868667
yeah were pretty much fucked i think were gonna want to go immortal sooner rather later. Or get that mechagodzilla

>>20868421
Ok, author of
>>20868534
Admittedly I have no idea what I'm doing over here, so in the future if I want to support an idea I need more than a post ref?

>>20868682
this

than this>>20868668

In the aftermath, Commissioner Capalbo reassures the public that this latest firefight in Santa Ana is just proof that Chimera has only grown more desperate. If they're smart, she says, they'll be pulling out of the city and going back to the Middle-East before Team Blue has a chance to finish them off.

A few hours later, a duffel bag turns up on one of your hideouts, containing one of the Project Photon weapons. A note inside reads "now we're even. Don't make me regret this. -SS"

>>20868667

The cops control that network now. Not to mention it's not a huge deal since you are basically Iron Master fulltime at this point.

whose initials we know of is SS?
reverse engineer that baby NOW that combined with swordsman tech will hopefully allow us unlock the tech. Also how is the lesser serum research going?

Do we still control kestrel's phylactery and exactly how much of her condition (deathless) did we explain?

>>20868728
ahhh kestral brought us a gift, welp turn on Mick we've got some reverse engineering to do. also , about the getting legit businesses going, any input from Julio on it?

>>20868728
Cat? She did owe us for saving her from Behemoth, but why would she regret it?
There are other possible supers operating in the city we dont know about, even heroes we dont know about.

>>20868825

You never really said whether or not you planned on holding onto her phylactery, but the worst you can do is take away her Deathless power. You did explicitly say you were explaining the concept to her in full, however.

>>20868867

I'm not sure what you mean by this exactly. It IS possible that there are supers in the city that you don't know about, of course, but for the record every super publicly known to exist is on either the Team Red or Team Blue pages from the wiki (well, all the ones LA cares about at least, there's all kinds of supers in San Francisco and Las Vegas and wherever that aren't listed there because they're not important to the quest).

Ah well, eitherway, dont bring it to our main lad, break it down carefully, search it for trackers and such, and get to work reverse engineering it with a think tank of AI.

>>20868987

It takes a while without the data, but you're able to reverse-engineer the gun. This means two things. First of all, it means that you can produce plasma rifles in small numbers essentially for free. These weapons have a base damage of 5 and are only slightly larger than a submachine gun, so not too hard to conceal. If you spend 5 resources, you can permanently increase the Warfare of any set by 1. You can only do this once, though. Once the set have laser guns, giving them more won't help.

Also, I have finally worked out some decent rules for a legitimate business. First off, the amount of money the city makes off a neighborhood is now called its Prosperity. So Robbery neighborhoods are Prosperity 4, Extortion is Prosperity 2, Drugs or Hookers is Prosperity 1, and Arms is Prosperity 0. Prosperity 3 is right out. To start up a business, you need resources equal to four times the local Prosperity. It then brings in resources equal to the Prosperity. Yes, this means that starting a business in an Arms neighborhood is essentially free and that with enough actions you can then turn that neighborhood into Robbery, paying actions instead of resources for the same result. You can start a business anywhere, but if you don't control the turf there's the possibility local criminals will wreck it (or the police, if they find out you're the one running it).

>>20868860
there was a clever anon who gave the groundwork for running a cover corporation a number of threads back. due to fact that legit business part of the game wasnt set up yet it didnt catch. IT was good however eould be nice if an anon could go n find it. think it was posted around the time of the edentech building raid or something.

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 0/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 1/2

>wat do?

Hmm, starting (or taking a new job at) a new business could be a good cover for the iron masters mundane identity. Hmm, not quite sure what our original engineering background was, but prosthetic devises comes to mind.

>>20869346

The original background was at an undefined, non-descript engineering company that operates out of Long Beach somewhere. Really, it can be whatever you want. Smith Sterling is a supergenius with expertise in literally any application of mechanical, robotic, or electrical engineering imaginable, and probably some more on top of that.

>>20869438
Then there'll always be a job opportunity for someone like us, im suprised there hasnt been headhunters already.

>>20869438
A personal vehicle company. Designing and building cars and shit. We revolutionize our manufacturing line with robotic assembly. We have like, a half dozen actual employees, but we still produce a fair amount of cars. All we need is a location large enough for manufacturing.

Rolled 71

>>20869333

lets make a personal craft how about a flying saucer use the wing blade things its edge so we can spin/cut through things 3 project photon Gatling gun make it a sub so we can hid it in the bay try and steal some of that clock ship to give it that too I want a bug out base m\lets make it big enough to have a small lab and a few dozen bots and a Mecha or two

>>20869525

Maybe there have been. Smith Sterling keeps himself well behind his lines at all times in a way that isn't even possible in real life, which means there's basically no way for the police to come knocking and his secret identity is basically irrelevant, so we've ignored it. It's safe to say, however, that it hasn't been completely neglected, and that the Iron Master has put in enough effort into maintaining his secret identity that he can still use it if the fancy strikes him.

>>20868534
More important bit: What did they say about our powers? Any suspicion that we are in fact a necromancer? Or our links to Kestral?
In the meantime, start scouting the goblins.

>>20869635
...Please read the rules.

>>20869764

No suspicion of your necromancy. They DO seem to have caught on that you are somehow capable of manipulating people at range, but their leading theory is that you've found a way to amplify Mesmer's powers with SCIENCE! and that you have a strong working relationship with him. This fits pretty well with Mesmer's general willingness to work with anyone who'll pay his rent and won't ask him to fight supers in general and metahumans specifically. The link between you and Kestrel is mostly dismissed. Chimera thinks that Kestrel is an impulsive teenage girl heavily prone to narrative bias who doesn't think that a new threat could be more important than something that's been around since before she was born, and thus, from her perspective, has been menacing society since the dawn of time. Their read on her character is MOSTLY accurate, but they underestimate the lengths you'll go to sway a hero for lulz as well as how much smarter than the average teenager Kestrel is.

>>20869786

I second this recommendation wholeheartedly. I'm not even sure what the "clock ship" is supposed to be.

>>20869764
And further strengthen our sets bordering Chimera turf and seed those territories with well hidden Mannequin Terminators and bodyguard units attached to set leaders.

>>20869899
Lets do something nice for Measmer anyway.
I dont know what crazy antics he's gotten up to lately, but lets gift him a plasma pistol if we can make them, or do we not have the miniaturization down yet?

>>20869899
Not surprised they've figured out its us screwing with them. Did they have any suggested countermeasures? Besides their plan to use mechs to impersonate us. (I thought they burned the computers that had all the data we stole from them)
Speaking of screwing with them, I happen to notice we know where project photon and aegis are being worked on.

>>20869935

Yeah, it'll be less powerful but you can still send him one that's stronger than any regular pistol.

>>20870014

They don't have any decisive countermeasures beyond their investigations into your secret identity. They're hoping they'll be able to use that against you to get you to back off long enough for them to find out exactly how you're mind controlling their goons, and once they know what they're dealing with they can find some kind of countermeasure. Logistics notes that bringing in heavy firepower from outside the country will not be necessary, but the reasoning behind the decision is not provided. Presumably that's also data that the Aggressor Divisions are holding onto.

>>20870014

Oh, also, remember that Chimera robbed Eden Tower for lots of parts, which means they'd end up building mechs reasonably similar to yours even without the data.

>>20870181
Fortunately they are underestimating us. First, does the Damio have meta strength?

>>20870210
Oh, didnt realize that considering i thought they only had the stealth ship for the raid.
Ah well, all the more reason to focus our attacks on them instead.

We need to get Dead Eye on retainer or something them sending him after goblins or family men so Chimera doesnt buy him up.

>>20870275

Considering how often you've worked with him, it seems reasonable to inform you that he does not.

>>20870293

Dead Eye has standing agreements with both the Family and Chimera not to attack either of them, but the Goblins are fair game.

>>20870328
Goblins and Stalkers then.
Decimate the leadership.

>>20870301
Then perhaps it is time to give him a gift. Have Julio arrange a meeting.

>>20870355
why?

>>20870301
Lets over him a power boost in exchange for a mutual alliance to take out the Goblins (and possibly the hounds) and split up their territory equally. It is time for the both of us to prosper.
Diamyo, the face of our battles
And I, The Iron Master, will assist with planning and logistical support, not to mention my legions.

It plays off of Okata's honor boner with him leading the fights, while we're actually handling planning and objectives. it reigns in his hotheadedness.

>>20870411

I think the plan is to keep Dead Eye busy so that Chimera can't turn him on you.

>>20870411
Keeps him busy while we deal with Chimera so they dont hire Dead Eye.

>>20870443
I support this!

You read up a bit on Bushido so that you can be at least slightly in character, but not so much as to seem patronizing, and then make contact with Okata. He is standoffish at first. Neither of his last two plans with you ended extremely well for him. But the promise of immediate payment in powers, as well as a much smaller target in the Goblins, wins him over. He is quite willing to make a joint attack with you, and simply asks you name the date.

Can we use the power of SCIENCE! to make Strike's body not look like Strike? (Dye her hair, face lift, maybe change in skin pigmentation)

>>20870590
say two weeks? We need the time to subvert at least one goblins set to act as our bridgehead.

>>20870615

Probably. You've got a biologist on hand and subdividing between biologists and surgeons is probably more detail than the quest needs. I like portraying society and people as accurately as possible, but comic book science is all over this thing anyway, so meh.

>>20870615
Like make it look more like the Rica?
She'd probably enjoy that, and since it's not like Strike's complaining, being long dead and all.

Afterall, we've had her body a while and she hasnt been stacking out chairs upside down, so i think we're good.

>>20870710
more just not make it blatantly obvious that we have necromantic powers.

>>20870639

Looks like everyone's satisfied with this timeframe, so the day (or turn, I guess) will be set for the fourth week of February, giving you two full turns (as well as about half your actions still left on this one) to get a beachhead.

>>20870888
right, first, what is the weakest shielding goblin set?

>>20870972

That would be the Nightmare Goblins. Remember those guys?

>>20871062
Not particuarly.

Oh! How did Julio's attempts at finding the survivors of the decimated elite of the Family?

>>20871080

You messed with them a bit back when you were stirring the pot between the Family and the Goblins. Long time ago.

Julio's efforts did not go well. But you can have him try again, he's got plenty of actions to burn this week.

>>20871062
They the nuts? (the goblins have six sets right?)
Okay, general plan:
1. Subvert the nightmare goblins (how good are julio's odds here?)
2. Buy Lazer guns for Platinum and Silver guards.
Save up cash.
3. Us and the Damio each target one of the two shielding sets
4. Replace sets.
5. Target shielded sets with remaining actions.

>>20871102
do so the faster were able to train up elite troops the better. Plus it means we wont dispatch mechs whenever SWAT comes calling. Thats the goal for the elite troops for now to be able to take on SWAT is goal number one. Goal number two after that is making it so their capable of taking military forces. Then special forces. After that i am out of ideas without including supers directly into the equation.

>>20871150

The Maniac Goblins are the nuts. The Nightmare Goblins are the super-stealthy ones who snuck up on your bots the one time.

Rica can inform you that Julio's odds of subverting the Goblins are not going to be as good as with the Nine Rollers in general. These guys are still street criminals, but they're way more serious about it. Also, if you paid to give Julio Peak or Meta Strength, his odds would go up dramatically. Half of subversion is Athletics.

>>20871150
Oh, and I forgot the most important bit:
Make sure Chimera cannot interfere by leaking the location where they are working on Projects Photon and Aegis to team Blue. the week we plan to attack.

>>20871296
Good thing we've got plenty for it.

Time to prove to the Family that an old dog
*sunglasses*
Can learn new tricks

>>20871296
But he has a power score of 0, he can't use the speed or strength lines right?

>>20871345
Anon.

We've got the power to Give them powers.
We have surpassed the prototyping to Edentech's experiments to larger scale injections of powers.
Three (okata makes 4) to their 1.

Rolled 57

>>20871296
ask Julio if he wants some super powers?
also can we make some a plasma pistols for Julio and Mesmer send him 2 make them fancy something to go with his costume.

>>20871380
Not that, he has a power score of 0 which means he has 0 PP, and it takes 2 PP to activate meta strength.

>>20871345

Oh, yes, that is correct. Though I've been thinking on a number of ways to increase ACTIONS and attributes with time or money instead of XP, I haven't actually finished any of those systems yet, so I guess that option isn't really on the table.

>>20871436
Oh, i would've thought that giving them powers would 'unlock' PP.
Sort of like suddenly gaining a mana bar.

>>20871461
yeah, giving them P1 would be okay
>>20871440
It sucks to right. Still, better than you remembering midbattle.

>>20871461

Giving out super powers to people who don't have them wasn't something I anticipated, so it's not really something I planned out, just a result of the fact that unpowered people don't even have a Power score. It's a hole in the system I'm trying to patch up, and now that I've thought about it a while I've concluded that what I did wrong was mostly balancing the game around the PC being the only one to meaningfully advance. If I could do it again (or if I make another one after we finish this) I'd just balance the events around the assumption that your henchmen gain XP at the same rate you do and can spend them the same way you do. Since the events AREN'T balanced around that, however, we're stuck with this mess. Sorry.

>>20871440
I take it that using a mech with A6 I6 and super strength and Super senses to do the subverting is a little silly?

>>20871569
but Mushtache.
You did give superpowers to someone who didnt have them.
We spent several sessions fighting the guy until we dumped his ass off in a shopping cart infront of police HQ with a note.

This Serum likely includes the means to give people the capability to use their newly given powers as well, so likely a tiny amount of PP, enough to activate it at least, would reasonably be granted.
After all, how'd Swordsman get his PP?

>>20871576

Mechs don't have action points and can't take actions like that.

>>20871625

Mechanically speaking, no, Matthew Lagrange didn't exist before he became Swordsman. Swordsman got his PP because EdenTech trained him to use their suit, something which is mechanically represented on your end with an investment of XP. And it's true that for relatively trivial things like ACTIONS and attributes it should be possible to spend other things on it, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

>>20871728
Trained to use the suit, but we know it's not all Suit. The Serum also plays its part. All im saying is the serum should give Power zero people the bare minimum to activate their powers.

>>20871576

Although it's worth noting that Rica can (and has) skirt around this by bringing her Battle Doll, something which I've decided isn't a huge problem. It does not mean that there's someone who can basically instant-win at certain crimes, but unlike with the infinitely rebuildable mechs, you can't use her to instant-win at EVERY crime, since she's still bound by about half of her ACTIONS.

>>20871802
Okay cool. Swap out meta Durability for Super senses (Lower power and health by two to compensate)

>>20871860

It turns out Rica's hidden super power is rolling snake eyes all the time, and she is unable to persuade her former comrades. They make reference to the "new boss" with a sort of superstitious awe.

>>20872113
Send Julio.
We've sent the wrong person, Julio is the one that subverted mostly everyone anyway.

Lets not have him dress like a Family gangster this time though.

>>20872113
>>20872155
Damn. Julio probably won't do to well. Might just want to have him manage sets this turn. Rica can just try again twice next turn.

Julio swaps out his suit for an Iron Guard get-up and sinks some actions into turning the Goblins because what the Hell, you're already an economic juggernaut. Unfortunately, however, the Nightmare Goblins are very hard to persuade.

Whisper puts a call through to you from the Cat. Apparently Behemoth is giving her some more trouble in the Hollywood area and she'd like to arrange an exchange. Help her bring him down hard and get him to back off and she will return the favor, helping you with basically whatever sort of crime you want (but only once).

Incidentally, thread is now archived here:

>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/20854287/

Also, readership is dropping off and I'm just kind of out of it right now, so I think I'm calling it here.

>>20872569
Does she have a plan? I'm a bit reluctant to take down a second super in such a short time span unless we can do it in a deniable way seeing that we have done quite a lot of crazy stuff recently and really should be laying low until this shit blows over. especially with the goblins raid coming up.

Taking out two supers in this time frame likely means that team blue will view us as much larger threat than they currently do.

>>20872569
Tell her we'd rather work together when we need to, we're not, Bad people right? In some ways i'd like to think us friends, or at least professional colleges. If she has a request, we'd be all too glad to hear it.

"A little back and forth is what i'd like Cat. You're mysterious, a little bit like me, but in a different way. If you need help, I'd be glad too, after all, I love knocking Behemoth down a peg."

Maybe we hand Behemoth other to Bouncer after we bring him down?

>>20872723
Also not to mention that Sofia know quite a bit about us, and might not take to kindly to us taking down her super-best-friends.

>>20872886
she did see our face.
Never designated that we wore a mask or anything when we talked with her ghost, and she can see ghost stalk us anytime she wants too.