Welcome back to Star Lane News. My name is Tesco
Long, and I'm reporting to you live from East
Brea City, where a routine peacekeeper patrol
turned deadly as clustrous forces in the city
opened fire in the residential neighborhood of
Prophet's Grove. The usually peaceful neighborhood
just outside the center of the city is now pockmarked
with craters, debris, and massive shell casings
from the outburst of violence. The Clustrous
Publicity Division said that the incident was,
and I quote, a transparent act of aggravation
in a neighborhood holding a majority of children
and civilians. General Wave's press office refused
to comment, but a source within the Peacekeepers
stated, Regardless of your thoughts on this conflict,
this incident proves that the fighting is far
from over. This has been Tesco Long, Starlane
News. Stay informed, stay safe, and keep your
eyes on the stars. Let's get into downtime, folks.
That's me starting the cut right there. So, I'm
going to be honest with you. Also, I'm getting
an echo from someone. One sec, I'm going to make
a loud noise. Bah! Bah! I don't even know who
it was. It's not me. Is it me? I have no clue.
Is anyone using speakers? Nope. No, I'm headset
gaming. Bah! Bah! Bah! Anything? No. Colin, you
gotta keep this in the episode, please. Yeah,
I have no clue. Anyways, so for downtime, we
gotta do your rewards. By default, because you
are technically a democracy faction, you get
one material, or materiel, and one personnel.
Why, Zach, are you the volunteer bookkeeper?
Yes, is there a... Oh, it's the dust light sheet.
Yes. It's the screaming monkey with the helmet.
Yeah, yeah, I got him, I got him. I don't see
a place for this. Do I just gotta... Oh, there
it is. So we get one materiel and one personnel
as your democracy bonus. Then, now we get to
do your supply roll, which is equal to the tier
of the enemy you just fought, which is zero.
That was a very easy fight, even though it broke
bad really badly. Holy shit, man. We learned.
And one for your... I'll also forget why, but
I wrote it down. So 0 plus 1 versus 1. So you're
going to get 1D to roll, and that's going to
determine how many supply points you gain. 1D6,
you really want that from me? Yeah, big money.
That's a 6. So you gain 6 supply points. Now,
supply points are, they're like points that can
be used on either material or personnel. They're
like all -purpose, but by the end of downtime,
they have to be either one or the other, if that
makes sense. They can only be this. ephemeral
two point stage during downtime i see and do
so just so i'm understanding this correctly we're
hard capped at banking for material and for personnel
that's correct so we could theoretically store
all six of these if we wanted to but we should
probably we're probably going to want to spend
some yes so you're going to get six of these
so let's put that in the supply so we can keep
track of it so you get your free upkeep action
so any pilot can spend material or supply for
a free upkeep action. And what that's going to
do, squad earns two rep. So you get two rep right
now. Yeah! Each pilot checks to see if they did
something to further their drive. I don't think
anyone did. No. No. You can now all spend material
or supply points to roll a die and you will refresh
quirks equal to the highest result. Oh, okay.
So for each material you spend, per person, you
get a roll of die. And then you refresh that
many perks, and then you remove all level 1 harm
and level 1 damage for spending that one material.
Okay. So... It's on a squad sheet. You have...
Up to 7. You have up to 7 material. So I would
recommend everyone does it. Everybody's gonna
want to do this. Can you repeat that? Because
I'm having a hard time finding... Which action
is it? Is it fix? Is it recover? Not in the downtime.
Believe it or not, it's not where you think it
is. It's in the mission completed section. Oh,
I skipped that. Yeah, there's some layout issues.
Where is the mission complete section? Do you
know what chapter it is? I'm on page 203. Okay,
downtime is on page 218. It's under reward. So
you spend one material. Just go ahead and deduct
four from the supply right now. I will deduct
four. We got two left. And then, so everyone's
gonna roll a d6 now. Yep. Alright, one d6. Yep,
one d6. Four. Fuck me. Hey, I like four. One.
So, Geist and Loyal, you are going to get one
quirk back. and remove all your level 1 harms
and damages from yourself and your mech. Joseph
and Hex, you get all your perks back, and you
remove any level 1 damages or harm you have.
But not any level 2 ones, because I know you
have a level 2 one, Hex. Okay, so only level
ones. Yes. If the mission's part of the Patron's
Faction goal, you add one tick to the goal's
clock. We're going to explore that in a little
thing. We already got the supply stuff, right?
Yes, we already got all the supply. I was like,
what if I helped with cook the books, but too
late now. Well, you still could. Yeah, what does
cook the books do? So I spend two stress and
a downtime activity, and you get an additional
supply roll. Oh. If you are part of an independent
squad, your supply roll is 0d, unless something
increases it. You may use this ability once per
downtime. Yeah, downtime actions happen after
this stuff, so you're actually not even late
for doing that. You can get us some extra cash,
which is fucking... That's really good, actually.
Cash money. On the topic of downtime actions,
I know no one read the rules except for Wyzak.
Well, give it away. I don't hold it personally
against you. I just know you guys didn't. It's
not interesting to everyone. But this game gives
you three downtime actions by default. Oh, shit.
You're getting two. You get a free heal anyways,
so I don't think it's necessary to give you three.
If that turns out to be too restrictive, blame
it on budget cuts. Goddamn bureaucrats. Not you
though, Hex. You're a good one. You're one of
the good ones, Hex. So, yes. We're going to move
ahead with downtime. Do you want to just roll
that? Tick off two stress, Hex. and roll another
d6, and you're going to get that extra supply
points. That's so much fucking cash money. That's
such a good ability. All right. I take back everything
bad I secretly said about the bureaucrat class.
Hey, we're support. Five. Five! Big fucking money.
That's so sick. That's so sick. Stay up all night
on the spreadsheet. We're up to seven supply.
That's big. So what does that look like? hex
are you like you like look at the requisition
forms and you start like exaggerating all the
damages we took it's a little bit of that and
a little bit of combat looting that no one noticed
but mainly mainly the forms no one was checking
out you're pulling legs off let's inspect them
i was like okay yeah i could use this leg the
requisition forms don't you know they're not
what they used to be so fucking true okay so
that's one downtime action for you So next up,
we're going to do status and trust for the mission
rewards. I've already done this for you on another
sheet, but basically your trust with the Soul
Union Peacekeepers is increasing by three because
one, you completed the mission successfully and
you completed a secondary objective, which is
no collateral damage. And you got a second pilot
as well. You did not kill everyone. You got two,
which is good. And you got the leader, which
is even better. Then after that, we get to do
entanglements, which is the last thing we have
to do before downtime activities, which we haven't
done yet. So the entanglements are like the complications
that come up after you do a mission. And it's
going to be a little weird with the lore we're
working with, because usually you do like a lot
of missions against different squads. But in
this case, you're always going to be going against
a clustrous squad, which complicates things a
little bit. We'll see. So, what we need to do
is roll. Build a dice pool equal to three minus
the squad relationship level with their patient.
Ewan. Loyal. Roll me 2d6. Just typing it. Ooh,
that's three. That's not good. Lowest bidder
from table A. Toxic gear. The gear you were issued
isn't healthy to be around. You may spend 1 personnel
for plus 1d, but either way, make a fortune roll
using the squad's tier. 1 to 3, everyone takes
level 1 harm, which can be resisted as normal.
4 to 5, everyone spends 1 material point to trade
it away or take 2 stress. Or 6, it's not toxic.
Oh my god, can you believe this bullshit? These
budget cuts are literally killing us. What do
you think it was that you got issued that turned
out to be toxic? Well, we don't know if it's
toxic yet. We might roll a 6. So do you want
to spend one personnel for plus 1d to this effect?
Yes. Okay. Roll 2d6. Brian. Yay. It's my turn.
It's your time to shine. Fuck me. Everyone takes
level 1 harm. What was? What did it? What was
it? Maybe he's irradiated. I'm trying to think
of something that we all got. Like, yeah, it
could be reactor shielding was bad. Maybe there
was something wrong with the air mix or, like,
maybe it was, like, like, exhaust was getting
filtered into the... That wouldn't affect me.
I breathe water. Yeah. The oxygen in the water
comes from somewhere as you breathe it. Also,
robot doesn't breathe air. Does radiation affect...
Yes, radiation does affect computers. Yeah, that
could affect computers. Okay, it's got to be
radiation then. Because no, this isn't damage,
this is harm. So this is to the pilot, not the
robot. Yes, this is to the pilot. But I am the
robot. All got some irradiated... Say the ammunition
you got from your sidearms, they got from some
sketchy depleted uranium. Not quite depleted
uranium. It was still kind of hot. Sensing a
faint glow. You were all carrying around like
a pistol full of radioactive ammo and you get
the papers a little bit too late after you're
already starting to have some weird effects like
weird rashes on your hands. That really sucks
for the neighborhood we fired these bullets in.
Is that a resolve resist? I would say, yeah,
I think this is a resolve resist. So if you don't
want to take the level one harm. irradiated irradiated
you need to click the word resolve on your character
sheet and you will see how much stress you get
for resisting this consequence big money roll
to five it's me stress get ready for that uh
cut loose it's gonna be fun this is gonna be
fun it's cool in this system because you always
cut loose with another player you ever see a
robot get drunk you're about to it can be done
uh brian Yo. You want to resist being irradiated.
I like that. Yeah. Okay. So you're going to click
the resolve word on your character sheet to see
how much damage you take. Both Herald and Mirage
are at five stress now. I know what's coming.
Drinks on me. So that is the end of the completed
segment. So now we can go to the downtime activities,
which we haven't done already. With that in mind,
do you guys want to spend some personnel points
to cut loose uh we don't have to yet uh if you
don't want to brian we haven't done xp yet i'm
down we have uh if we want to xp that's what
i was just thinking that should be in the reward
section but it's not there and i don't know where
it is and i'm gonna go out on a limb and say
it's not in the index Unless it's under X, which
would be really silly. It is! Okay. Pilot advancement.
Here we go. So, general XP. We'll do this first.
So, if you expressed your character's tragedy,
history, or opening, which are those things we
did in character creation, just like your backstory
in general, you are going to put one XP. into
the xp tracker on your character sheet i believe
it's just playbook xp you can put it there i
think you can also put it in any of your um like
expert oh yes right resolve prowess and so on
but if you put it in the playbook xp you get
new special abilities so that's kind of the better
place for it yeah so playbook xp is where you
go to get more abilities like for instance joseph's
shadow Or you can put it into one of your skills,
and that will give you more skilled thoughts
later. So everyone do that now. I express mine
by handling a challenge with intense speed rather
than just doing the sensible thing and fighting.
And you refuse to fall back, even though it might
have been advantageous to. That is true as well.
The next XP criteria is struggle because of their
beliefs, scars, or their vehicle's quirks. I
don't think anybody did. That's a good point,
actually. That's why you want... your quirks
to also possibly be bad. So like if we were sneaking
somewhere and I was like, oh, actually, I think
this should be more difficult because my vehicle
is roaring fast, which means it's very loud,
then I would be able to get XP for griefing my
teammates. Which is important. So I guess that's
something to keep in mind during play, but I
don't think anybody did that today. Next is address
challenges with methods determined by their playbook.
Can I say that I did that when I went like mega...
Actually, I think basically everybody did in
some way. Yeah, so I believe the actual triggers
are on your playbooks specifically, like in the
class section. Oh, that's right. Okay. Yeah,
yeah, they are. So for the ace, it's address
a challenge with piloting or violence. It's going
to be very easy. Oh, baby. Yeah, did I ever?
I don't think I ever addressed the challenge
in any other way. Yeah, and I believe you get
multiple XP points for doing it multiple times.
Cool. Can I say, I'll take two, because I did
piloting when I flung the guy out of the hole,
and I did violence when I just flew down through
the skylight shooting them. The infiltrator's
XP trigger is you address a challenge with stealth
or evasion. Did I evade myself out of the fucking
frame as I took down the lady? You did not evade
yourself. But you did start the mission using
your... I did. Oh my god. Give yourself an XP.
Empath. Understanding or poise. Which you did.
I did do that. Okay. And for Brian, yours is
for Hex. Address a challenge with procedure or
management. I'm not sure if you did that. I mean,
what about cooking the books? That is... We're
talking about the outside succession at that
point. Okay, then no. But, worth keeping in mind
in the future. You can just rattle off about
regulations and how we can't do this. Or how
much it's going to cost. Okay, I like that. Okay,
that is that part of it. Now I have to do squad
development. I believe. You are the mechanized
cavalry. That's the XP triggers we decided to
go with. XP trigger for that is execute a successful
battle, delivery, or rescue operation. You did
that. Yeah. Kind of did all three of those, technically
speaking. This was a battle and you delivered
a person and you rescued them from their life
crime. Three points. Are you giving us the triple?
No, you're not getting three points. But you
are getting two. Because you did a pretty good
job. You got all your objectives done very well.
Here are the downtime actions you guys can take.
Acquire asset, which is to get a temporary use
of an asset, which is like an item, a cohort,
port, or service. Enhance, which is work towards
gaining a new quirk or vehicle action point.
Fix, which is to use technical skill to repair
a vehicle. So fix is for if your mech is fully
broken, which is if you try to push yourself
past your quirks, which... It's something you
can do if you feel like it. Manufacture, which
is to turn a design into a functional object.
Salvage, which is to deconstruct a vehicle for
extra supply points. You do not have a vehicle
to deconstruct at this point, so you can't do
that. Upkeep, which is to do routine maintenance
with material to refresh quirks. That is what
you would do, Geist and Loyal, to get the rest
of your quirks back, which I highly recommend.
Yup. Yeah. And then there is collect, which is
to basically pressure locals into giving you
money and supplies. Cut loose, which is to spend
time with a pilot to relieve stress and learn
about them. And that's mostly useful if you have
stress used up. There is such a thing as overindulging,
which is if you recover more stress than you
lost. So keep that in mind. The only person who
could recover stress would be Hex at this point.
He's so stressed out. Yeah. There are long -term
projects, which is for working towards something,
oftentimes working towards your drive. Recover,
which is to convalesce or get treated by a doctor
if you have physical harm, like Hex does. Hex,
really doing good. Schmooze, which is to make
a faction trust you more or train for gaining
a new action point. And this is all on page 220
that I know I read a lot just now. So that is
everything. Does anyone know what they want to
do? I think the most easy ones would be for the
upkeep of those mechs first. Yeah, we should,
me and Ewan should definitely both go ahead and
upkeep right now. So I'll knock our supply down
to five and then I'm not going to bother rolling
because I only have one quirk left. So I need
to recover three quirks. Yeah, so you need to
roll a d6 and you want to roll a three or higher.
Great. You recover the rest of your quirks. Good
work. Nice. Hex, do you want to go to a doctor?
Yes, Hex. Hex is going to use his healthcare.
Okay, so you're going to take the recover action.
It lets you heal your harm. Recovery is a long
-term project. So, Hex, you go to the doctor.
Your doctor's name is Dr. Suri Grace. You might
remember her from the vignettes. And, you know,
she says, Jesus, Harold? From accounting? It's
been a while. He says bashfully. Why, Harold,
why are you filled with flechettes? They needed
more help. I can make a difference out there,
not behind a desk. She has a look of horror on
her face. Jesus, how long until I'm in the fucking
field? Okay, lay down. Alright, Hex complies
wordlessly. And Suri Grace is a Tier two, doctor.
So you get two dice. Roll me 2d6 and we'll see
how good of a job she does. She's a pro! Okay,
she's not a quack. Five and a five. So you're
going to fill two segments on your healing clock.
Two. I think we can spend personnel points to
do that again, can't we? Yes, so you can spend
a personnel point. You can either spend it to
increase its level by one, which will only get
you to three segments, or you can spend a personnel
point to roll again. And she takes some extra
time with you. Which is what I would recommend.
Let's do that one. Because that has a chance
of making it go away entirely. So roll me another
2d6. Big money no whammies. That's a quack. That's
just one more chunk. You get one more chunk.
We have these points. We can spend them. So we
can just do it again. Actually, you could just
spend one to bump the thing up at this point.
Exactly. So why is that deduct one more? And
we will have it finished. We got three supply
left. I believe it only moves it down. So now,
instead of shredded, you now have the level one
cut. I'm writing that in for you. Oh, thank you.
You're so polite. Now I can't cheat. I have...
Sorry. Go ahead. Well, it's kind of maybe a big
question, but how much, like, how liable is pilot
harm to actually influence... like mech piloting
you know what i mean because like harm only applies
its penalty if it's applied to the role that
you're doing and if the machine is doing the
heavy lifting that feels like it's going to be
limited for like vehicle activities most of the
time i think i would agree with you um because
the mechs already have their own damage categories
i don't think there's We can say that the mechs
have enough assistant programs in it that they
can ride. So it might be worth just leaving that
as a level one harm that will theoretically automatically
clear away. Provided your next mission is in
a brain. Oh yeah, that's true. Which I can't
comment on one way or the other. Yes, so... Ryan,
you have used... You have one... I haven't just
for my second downtime action. I'm going to take
the enhance action. And because we have the testing
facility squad upgrade, I believe that was the
other one that we picked. Anytime we enhance,
we get two ticks on the clock. So I'm going to
enhance and I'll put two ticks in my enhance
track because, yeah, getting an extra cork is
huge. So I don't think it's even remotely easy.
And I don't think I'm going to spend any points
to take any extra actions. I think I'm good where
I am. Brian, why don't we close out your last
downtime action? What do you want to do? Well,
I'm all healed. What are my options? It's on
page 220. What does stress do? Stress is what
you use when you're not in your mech instead
of quirks. Can I blow off some steam? Sure. You
only have two stress right now, right? Yeah.
So there is a danger when you are... Cutting
loose, if you overindulge, meaning you recover
more stress than you have, bad things can happen.
Yeah, it will probably go bad if you roll a 3,
4, 5, or a 6. But if you think that's what the
character would do, even if he's a little stressed,
like, I need a drink. Cut loose! You can become
an alcoholic. That's exciting. That is exciting.
That's like the arc of every single one of my
characters. That's why I gave this guy a synthetic.
He can't even drink. Oh, geez. I can't fall back
on vice as a main facet of this character. I
forced myself out of my usual tropes. He smokes
instead. He can't. He doesn't have a mouth. Oh,
my God. Just kill yourself. He injects his meals
into his into a port in his lower torso. Oh,
no. They go right into the duodenum. Well, they
say alcoholics are pretty charming people, but
I'll hold off. I guess enhancing is a thing that
everybody. can do everybody's going to eventually
want more quirks so if you don't have like a
second downtime action to do just spend some
time in the old testing facility tinkering away
with your robot it's definitely i would say that's
an extremely good fallback action if you don't
have anything else because like you're always
going to want to be ticking that clock if you
can do i have another downtime i'll do it uh
yes loyalty you do cool i'm also gonna enhance
enhance the weird thing about the quirk system
is that In many ways, it is more profitable to
do a train action because then you get less because
the amount of works exhausted is dependent on
your skill level. So if you get one dot in each
mech skill, you only ever lose one work. I think
it's Joseph. Mirage, right? Could I do working
on a long -term project to try to further my
drive by studying AI in a specific way? Yeah.
Let me know if this is overstepping my bounds,
but I had an idea of... Who was our infantry?
I forgot their name. Spud? Captain Spud? The
team of them. Are they just called the infantry?
They're called the Raptors. The Raptors. I was
wondering if I could go in and fiddle with all
of their Class 2 AI on their frames to... To
kind of do a little test, like I wanted to simulate
fear by making the frames or the AI take more
drastic actions in difficult events. Is that
too much? That's psychotic, dude. That is pretty
psychotic. But the raptors are not pilots. They're
just soldiers. They don't have like personal
AIs in their mechs. They're just guys. Oh, really?
Yeah. Is there anyone I can get to who has a
group of like class twos that I can work with?
I'm sure other pilots and other squads have them.
OK, is there a way I can go to a squad and maybe
ask? I could pose and say that, you know, you
know, I can't really help with a wrench, but
I can assist in making your targeting better.
And then secretly just kind of make it so I'm
actually torturing your AI for fun. I'm not I'm
not having them go crazy, OK? I'm just what I
want to do with the AI is in bad moments. I want
them to take more riskier actions to save the
pilot's life. That way, if this succeeds, I can
use it as a reason to show how possibly like
AI learning emotions is not a horrible thing.
And it could be helpful for emergent personalities
to emerge from class two AIs. Bro, you literally
just turned off the firewalls and the safety
features. Which squad are you doing this to?
I was going to do it to Spud, but I don't know
who I should. What are my options? There are
the shutter bugs. who you have a negative relationship
with. There are the bone pickers, who you have
a positive relationship with. You have the thimbles,
which you have no relationship with. The moon
devils would not let you near their mechs, so
they're not an option. The shovel scum, and that
is all of the Seoul Union squads. There's also
the volunteer police with the government, and
then there are campus police, the vector mines
with the corporate council, and the private military
isn't really present here right now, so they're
not an option. The other thing I wanted to ask
is, do I have to roll for anything here? And
like, can I fail or is this just role playing?
So for the, this is going to be role playing,
but when you roll, it determines how much you
fill on that clock. Okay, that's good. I was
going to think I maybe go to the Shutterbugs
because I can use the angle of them not liking
me so I can apologize and see if I can do extra
work for them. It's really funny to me that Joseph
is like, I need to prove to the Soul Union that
it's okay for AI to develop. I know I, an AI
who has developed emotions, will start kidnapping
other AI and torturing them for my own amusement.
It's for their own good, okay? Surely this will
prove my worth. The ends justify the means, Geist.
Don't you understand? So this is going to be
a six -step drive. Joseph's AI torture. Okay.
So this is going to be a six step block. And
once you complete this, you will get a drive
tick in your thingy. So, yeah, you roll up to
the shutterbugs. Yeah, there's a guy here. All
lanky ass dude with a weird looking head. It's
like lumpy. What are the shutterbugs do real
quick? Propaganda. Propaganda. Yeah. Gotcha.
And they use frames, right? Yeah, they have a
couple of frames. OK. They're like. They're kind
of the poster boys. Like a lot of like the propaganda
will feature them like doing action poses, even
though they're not that good as pilots. But yeah,
you come up to this guy. His name is Gentry Old
Sign. He is the leader of the Shutterbugs. And
he says, well, hey, man, what are you doing here?
Mr. Old Sign. Is that correct? Captain Old Sign.
Captain Old Sign. I like the sound of that. Listen.
I've been visiting a lot of the squads around
the base here. I'm good friends with the bone
pickers, but I know me and you aren't so compatible.
I don't wish to remain a stranger here forever,
and I want to assist you in any way I can. I
don't see how us being enemies helps everyone.
I want to lay out anything that can assist you.
I know I can't hold a wrench, but possibly I
can maybe... Fiddle with the AI in your frames
to increase the targeting parameters and help
you out there. I feel like as the Shutterbugs,
you deserve stronger frames. And would you agree
that the main barrier to this goal right now
is convincing these people that you should be
allowed to touch their mechs? Yeah, I would say
that the big thing here is trying to do that.
That was my best argument there. This is going
to require a sway roll. So you roll to determine
your effect here. Sure, okay. You roll an appropriate
action, and I think the appropriate thing for
this particular step is going to be sway or consort,
which you have a zero in. Great. Should have
gone to the bone pickers. I'm going back now.
You can push yourself, which will get you from
zero dice to one die. If you have zero dice,
you roll two and you take the lowest. If you
have one, you just roll one. Alternatively, you
could have one of your, if you felt it appropriate
to bring one of them in on it, you could have
one of your quad mates help you out with this.
Hex, would you want to join me? How'd you convince
Hex to do this? Like, did you tell him what you're
doing? Like, you're just lowering this... What
does he know? I would be... We can have that
conversation. I roll up to Hex. All right. Excuse
me. Hex, is it? Yes. I'd like to introduce myself.
We didn't really get to speak during the mission.
I'm Joseph. Call sign Mirage. Mirage, good to
meet you outside the suit. How can I help you?
I have a bit of predicament here, and I was wondering
if you can assist me. I wanted to run a little
test on the AI around here, particularly with
the shutterbugs, but being a robot, they don't
really communicate with me well. I need assistance
in this, and if you ever need help, I can assist
you too. Not with fiddling with the AI, of course,
but in any way my frame can be capable. I was
an infiltrator. I can do that. You don't need
to go that far. We're on the same team. Here,
let me come help. Give a little thumbs up. Let's
walk over to the Shutterbugs. He doesn't know
the details. Yeah, it's true. Great. So we flash
forward. And as you're describing that, Hex,
how do you help out with this? What do you say?
How do you lend your, you know? You know, I help
bridge the communication gap. The Shutterbugs
might not look too kindly on a tin can, so. Yeah,
I'm looking meekish on the ground and kind of
like bowing my head. On the face. On the face
here. Sure. I accept that. I think that's cool.
All right. So you're going to have 1D, Joseph.
You still have to roll it because you don't get
to use this. You could push yourself, which takes
two stress, to get yourself another die if you'd
like. I'd love to do that. Okay. So take those
two little red marks and then roll me 2D6. And
let's hope you roll well. anything could happen
slash r 2d6 3 and a 5 so we're gonna take the
5 to get the higher number which means you're
gonna get two set segments on your joseph's ai
torture why do you have to say it like that okay
that's that's what you're doing i thought you
explained it to me okay um yeah maybe so yeah
you with the help from hex and his sweet sweet
bureaucratic nature They let you start working
on their mechs, but they are keeping an eye on
you at this point. They're not fully comfortable
yet, but you do get some progress on this. You
make some like innocuous tweaks that could be
interpreted as like tuning up their targeting
systems. Well, really, you're making their AI
afraid. I just see it's a little hypothesis I
have, but it might just work. That was one action.
I believe you have another one if you'd like.
Yeah, I would like to. sorry guys he's like he's
tinkering and he's like yeah like i'm just here
you know working and then as soon as they turn
around you're like listen up you little motherfucker
step into a lot of motherfuck again then they
turn around you're like yeah so you know if we
just tweak a little bit here yeah no no no i'm
sitting in the frame and i'm just working on
it and then you're suddenly here and i click
something sorry about that um Just working on
the AI. I know that sounded like a scream, but...
No, that's not a scream. What are you talking
about? A little bit of steam, yeah, coming out
of the side there. Should be up in a jiffy. Jesus.
Yeah, what do you want to do? Do you want to
do the same thing as your next project? No, I
was maybe hoping to raise one of the stats here.
Okay, so that's an enhance or a terrain. Do you
want to raise a mech stat or a person stat? Probably
a mech stat. I was going to ask you, are we going
to continue with my bombard theory with my laser,
or would you like me to enter into a battle stat
instead? I don't have a preference, but how bombard
works is that it will work very well if there's
no pressure on you. But if someone's in your
face, you cannot bombard them. Not without maneuvering
out of the way first. Okay, but I have good maneuver.
So if you want to go for the kind of guy who's
like, I'm sniping. Thumbs to my face, I get out
of the way and I snipe more, then I think that's
a good fit to stick with that. Let's do bombard
then. Okay, so what you are going to do is you're
going to take the enhance action, and so you're
going to add two ticks to the acuity tracker
of those two little banners. Okay, so those are
your two actions. Okay, everyone's done their
downtime actions. Does anyone want to spend any
resources for an extra downtime action? We have
three supply left. Which is enough to bang. I'm
good for now. Yeah, let's just hold on to it.
At this point, especially since we don't know
how long the enhance bar is, let's just say that
we're going to hold on to the rest of our cash
money for now, because we're going to get another
shitload next mission as well. So, you guys are
sure you don't want to cut loose? It's up to
you, Brian. I can do it if you want. I'm down.
I have five, so I'm in. I have five as well.
I have one point of personnel left. I am intent,
even though you're mechanized cavalry, I do intend
on having you guys have out of mech. missions,
because you have those skills, and I'm not certain
the next one will be it, but it might be. So,
you may want to cut loose. Let's cut loose. Let's
cut loose, Brian! Okay, so, Wyzak, go ahead and
deduct two supply points, or whatever. Wait,
is it two? So we only have one... Oh, I can,
yeah, I guess I can take it out of the personnel.
But I think you have to pay twice. Is us cutting
loose fucking over the team? Thank you, Cashier
Wyzak. You're saving me. So the pilot you pick
to go with you doesn't necessarily have to take
the cut loose action as well. Yeah, so it's optional.
So basically, the only one who actually gets
the mechanical benefits of it is the person who
engages it. Yeah, the person who takes the action
is the one who gets the mechanical benefits.
The other person doesn't get stress off? No.
Well, you could say, because we can just say
that they cut loose together, right? Like they
can both take the action and have a scene. Does
that how much does that speed away that it'd
be two points like we said so we got him we got
him to spend. What does that look like. Joseph
feels he feels like he needs to thank you and
he doesn't know how humans do it but he knows
people hang around the bar quite a bit. So he
feels like I don't know if hex is this man but
he's a busy bureaucrat. He's possibly gotten
drunk before. Let's invite him to the bar. So
I say hey I found some old old liquor bottles.
Would you like to share them with me. Let's do
it. Come on in. You're going to see Joseph sitting
there. Room's empty. It's late. He's got his
elbow on the counter and he has some liquor bottles
around and he waves at you. Hello, Hex. How are
you? Hex doesn't let his unease about the situation
show like a seasoned professional and joins him
at the counter. I'm doing fine. Thanks for having
me over. That's wonderful. I wanted to find a
pretty quiet time so we can get to know each
other, not have any interruptions because, well,
and he shoves a liquor bottle towards you. I
really wanted to thank you for the help that
you did with me, you know, with the shutterbugs.
Of course. My pleasure. X takes a swig. So what
exactly did you do? Something I wanted to quickly
ask, Colin, is can robots technically get drunk
in this universe? It's oil. I was going to say,
like, can should he? I was wondering, like, will
he do a thing where it's like I will technically
slow my processes every time I take a quote unquote
sip just to match you, you know? Yeah, I don't
think there's any limits on making yourself more
stupid. So, yeah, sure. OK, maybe I'll explain
that to you. I'll say I have to apologize for
us emergent personalities. We can't get drunk.
But as in my robot frame, I. Can slow my processes
every time I take a drink to match yours. How
does that sound? Okay. Hex just kind of nods
and, like, blinks. Surprise, but whatever. He
flicks something in his head. Now, to answer
your previous question, I was... Well, I think
we're friends. I could admit to you that I might
have been increasing a Class 2 AI's targeting
parameters in the, uh... frames there, but not
in the way they expected. And he lifts another
glass to his lips, his robo lips that aren't
there. When you say expanded, what do you mean
by that? Hex is already one drink down. Well,
you see, I feel like, well, you've been around.
You know how people feel about AI, emergent personalities,
anything above a three. You don't see him around
a lot. And a 4, that's shunned forever. But I
believe with a little bit of work, people can
realize the advantage of Class 3 AIs. He does
not mention the 4. And he takes another glass
to his lips. So I guess I will say that I try
to make the Frames AI a little bit more Class
3. All right. That's an improvement. I don't
see, I don't have a problem personally. Joseph
winks at you and says, I'm so glad you see it
that way. I was really hoping you would. He brings
another glass to his lips. What is this? I'll
just say that Joseph is not making his processes
slower every time he drinks the glass, but he
is putting his hand up. That's not even how he
does it. He just pretends to flick something
on his face. I will admit that to you, but you
don't know that. Exus is starting to really feel
it and is wondering what the hell this robot
bought. It's some of the good stuff. I've heard
people in the cafeteria say they only break it
out after successful missions. And I have to
say, you did great work in our recent mission.
Oh, thank you. I am flattered, but so did you.
Your capture of the subject was excellent. Thank
you. Well, like I said before. If you need any
help outside the mission in any way, a frame
like me can assist. Please do let me know. I
know you're busy with bureaucracy, but I am a
computer. Maybe I can help you with that. Careful.
I might just take you up on that. I like the
sound of that. Click. Okay. So you are each going
to check. Actually, you guys should do two because
you're going to cut loose with each other. Oh,
yeah. Both times. Okay. Should I put a description
next to each? No. When those fill up, then you're
going to add something. And we're actually going
to, off mic, we're going to each make a belief
about every pilot involved right now. This will
be your first belief that you have about them.
And then next session, at the start, we will
talk about what those beliefs are. Like what
we start out, what we think about each other.
Mechanically, you should each roll me a D6. D6.
And you're going to lose that much. Oh, fuck.
Holy shit. This is the one thing that does not
want to happen. Okay, so here's the problem.
You both got a six. No, it's worse. You overindulge.
Wow, this early? You both cleared more stress
than you have. Wow, we must be really not stressed.
Usually it's really bad, by the way. I have a
roleplay fix for this, by the way. One night
robot stand or something? I was going to say
that I imagine that Hex is getting sloshed and
then Joseph, he starts to feel for Hex a bit
and figures, I'll start bringing down my computing.
Why not? This guy really helped me. So he will
slowly go, but he doesn't know how far he's going
because he hasn't really done this before. You're
a four function calculator by the end of the
night. Exactly. So here are the options for overindulging.
One, attract trouble, which is that you are going
to roll an additional entanglement. on the table.
This was the table we used for the radioactive
gear, so keep that in mind. Two is brag, which
means you get minus two trust with your patron
faction because you get big lips and you say
some things you probably shouldn't have in a
public space. The third option is AWOL, which
is your pilot vanishes for a few weeks, which
means you're going to play a different pilot
next session until you return. And then fourth
is impropriety, which is you make an ass out
of yourself in front of the other pilot, which
means you reset your connection clock. with them
to zero. If it's already at zero, you take the
level one harm alone. But we both have to do
that to each other? Yes, you both have to choose
which one you want. So it's either you're going
to get another entanglement, you're going to
take minus two trust, you're going to go missing
for a few weeks, or you're going to reset your
connection clocks with each other. How about
we meet each other at the end of the night? Yeah,
you're saying like we just reset our connections?
Like, we were initially about to be buddy -buddy,
but now Hex is super distrustful of you, I think,
is a good way to frame it. I think we're getting,
yeah, I might be getting so drunk that I'm admitting
things about humans, and you're like, fuck you,
man. And I'm like, humans are not helpful. I
like this a lot. I like this a lot. We got too
drunk. Got too drunk. Said some things we regretted.
Maybe next time. Okay, yeah, so uncheck those
two check marks. You won. Alright, do I get to
zero out stress, by the way? Yes, you do. Alright,
hey, at least it was cathartic. Yes. And, uh...
The AWOL one's hilarious, though. That's insane.
I might think about doing that, but right now
I just want this. It's really funny. We had this
moment we shared, Hex. Even if we might not be
friends. There's no taking that away. And that
is... it my friends thank you for playing um
if you're listening thank you for listening see
you next time