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ValtheStarGal

Supreme Stellar Sorceress
Welcome to the Tournament!
Congratulations! You’ve been selected from a pool of candidates to participate in Gerlach’s fifth annual Breakout: Crisis tournament! You were chosen because you have exhibited exceptional skills, and have the opportunity to put those skills to the test! Think you’ve got what it takes to win the grand prize? Can you overcome a dangerous environment, outwit deadly enemies, and complete your mission alongside comrades you won’t even know until you’re in the mission? Will you be able to escape Outpost Sigma?

If you think you’ve got what it takes, you’ll want to send a fork out to the Gerlach habitat in Venus orbit! Your fork will be assigned to a squad of other lucky contestants, chosen at random but to best compliment each other’s skills to give you all the greatest chance for success. You’ll be waiting in simulspace lobby for as long as it takes to get you into a match, and then you’re off to face the ultimate test! Your fork will barely be away any time at all, and will have a hell of a story for you when they get back!

If that wasn’t enough, there are prizes on the line! Our sponsors have generously created a pot for the team that scores the most points in addition to completing the challenge - which will be no walk in the park. Teams that manage to complete their mission and score the most bonus points will return to their hab of origin having an entire pot of credits to divide between them, and maybe even a selection of exclusive-license fabber blueprints!

Please ensure your fork arrives within an hour of the tournament beginning. Further details have been enclosed with this file...

Sentinels

Sentinels, this is Starglass. As you likely know by now, you’ve been ‘randomly selected’ for a private gaming tournament on Gerlach. You’ve all been on operations before, but it’s been decided among the Proxies that you all should get some sim-time in together, and that means getting all of your egos in one place. To do that, we need you to dispatch a fork to Gerlach, Venus’ primary orbital habitat, where you’ll be instanced as an infomorph on secured servers being rented by our front hypercorp putting on the company.

The servers, even the tournament, is private, but efforts have been made to ensure no one has a reason to look too closely; you’ve all been registered under false identities as Breakout enthusiasts from your respective habitats, as have enough of our fellow sentinels to throw off suspicion. You’ll all be slotted into the same team together and given your choice of morph (within reason) to load up as a simulmoprh. From there, you’ll play out the mission as though you were on an actual op.

There’s one other thing: you’ll be ‘randomly slotted’ with two other operatives that we want to keep an eye on. One of them is an Argonaut named Abigail Hammond - yes, of those Hammonds. She fled to Venus to get out from under their thumb, and she’s been content to work with hypercorps on Shukra, but she’s just too good at what she does to not see how she’d fare on an op like this. The other one is Marcus Speidwagon. Why are we inviting the Extropian racing pilot out to play Breakout, you might ask? His ego’s been flagged all over the belt lately, involved in activities that have nothing to do with racing, and we want to get to know him better in case certain hunches prove justified. Pay attention to how they react to the shit that goes down in the sim, and decide for yourselves if they’re sentinel material or not.

It might get rough at points, but it’s just a game, so you should be fine. That said, I haven’t been told what the prize blueprints are, so you might want to give it a solid go, huh?
Abigail

Salaam, Abigail Hammond. This is Yasmin al-Rundi. We have recently been informed that you have been invited to participate in the Breakout: Crisis tournament being hosted in Venus orbit, aboard Gerlach station. The Institute for the Study of Emergent Trends has signaled to me its interest in having its members or fellow Argonauts participate in the yearly tournament, and since you’re the lucky winner, they have asked me to encourage you to accept the invitation and send a fork up to Gerlach. Any winnings would be yours to keep, we only ask you keep your inserts recording so we can study the XP data as well as debrief your fork upon her return from Gerlach.

Information on the actual sim is limited: the hypercorp hosting it has kept those cards close to their chest and we haven’t considered it worth breaking in to find out. In fact, information on the hypercorp itself is rather limited: part of the reason we’d encourage you to accept the offer is to get in there and try to find out who might be hosting the game. It’s our understanding that you will be assigned to a group at random, but try to find out what you can about the comrades you’re assigned to and about the hypercorp hosting the tournament.

I don’t know if there will be many opportunities for you to put those hacking skills to use against the simulation itself, but I must discourage you from attempting to hack the simulation itself if the opportunity arises: they will likely be monitoring the system for any attempts at subversion and will likely eject you from the sim if you are caught. Besides, you’d forfeit the possible prizes, and who knows what might be waiting for you?

The important thing is to find out what you can about your comrades and the organization putting on the tournament. We have some suspicions, but we need you to go in and find out more. Good luck in there.
Marcus

[Marcus Speidwagon, you have a new task. You are to report to the Nysa Egodrome and dispatch a fork of your ego to the Gerlach station in orbit above Venus for a simulation game tournament that you have been invited to. You are to participate in the tournament and investigate who is hosting it. Acquire what information you can on the players you are assigned to the team with and the hypercorp hosting the tournament. I will inspect your XP data upon your return.]

[Your focus will be the players assigned to your team and the hypercorp hosting the tournament: acquire any information you can on who they are and their associates for further investigation. Breakout: Crisis is a simulation game modeling the Fall, however the level you will be performing in will be set on a Lunar outpost. It will feature hostiles from the Fall, the exact nature of which have not been revealed. It is modeled on reality: do not expect to do anything in the simulation you cannot do in reality. However, as it is a simulation, I trust it will be well within your ability to complete. Any winnings are yours to keep, but I will expect a full report on your return from Gerlach.]
 
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Rushing Jaws
Breakout Tournament: Outpost Sigma

An instant of unconsciousness, then-

"Hell-oh, this must be the game," Rushing Jaws says aloud to no one, before realizing he is alone in the simulspace. Everything aside from Rushing Jaws' own morph is rendered in black and white, and the sounds inside the room are muffled and indistinct. Glancing around, Rushing Jaws guesses he is in some kind of armory, but the simulspace rendering has deliberately blurred everything to vague, grey shapes. There are four blank spaces, ghostly silhouettes highlighted by the simulation to indicate where Rushing Jaws' comrades are supposed to load in. Rushing Jaws tries to take a step forward, but finds his morph walking in place - a slightly jarring effect.

[A restriction of the simulation, I'm afraid], Māzǔpó says to him, her voice a comfort in this strange environment. [You won't be able to interact with anything outside of your own simulmorph until everyone's loaded in and the clock starts. That's not a bad thing, though: let's get you checked in with your simulmorph.]

It feels fine, Rushing Jaws thinks, looking down and inspecting the simulmorph he selected from the menu before loading in to the simulation. This particular simulmorph is a replication of a Fury morph, a combat morph tailored for ferocity in combat and coordination with its comrades. This one seems modeled after a northern European template, with fair skin, curling ginger hair and a stout, muscular build dressed in smart-fabric clothing; unlike the rest of the simulspace, this morph is rendered with hyperreal texture and sensation, near-indistinguishable from a living, breathing Fury. Testing the simulmorph's feel, strength, and flexibility with a few stretches and light exercises, Rushing Jaws is pleased by the simulmorph's strength and responsiveness. In the best approximation of a cetacean call a human mouth can manage, Rushing Jaws sings the calls of the Maelstrom pod: the morph's voice is strong and has a pleasing sound to it. Rushing Jaws smiles with this human mouth of his, humming the calls of his old pod at a volume that would be to himself were anyone else around.

If this were the real, it would be a really nice sleeve - for a sape.

[Glad to hear it!] Māzǔpó says. [I guess all we can do now is wait for everyone else, although it shouldn't take long for them to load in.]

Can't wait, Rushing Jaws thinks, already looking forward to the game.

Welcome to the thread! Upon arriving at a new habitat or environment, often the first thing you will be doing is resleeving into a new morph. There are three tests called for when resleeving: Integration, Alienation, and Continuity tests. All three of these are success tests, which means you roll against a benchmark to determine whether or not your character succeeds at the test.

Integration is SOM x 3, and will measure your character's physical integration with their morph. In RP terms, a successful test would mean your morph feels natural, where a failure means you have trouble acclimating to your morph. For example, Rushing Jaws has a SOM of 20, which means his SOM x 3 is 60. He gets a bonus from being familiar with Furies (+30) and from a trait (+10), but a penalty for being an Uplift sleeving a non-uplift morph (-10). His test ultimately ends up being for 90, which means he had a 90% chance to make the roll. Rushing Jaws rolled a 9 for his test, so he made an Excellent Success on the test! This simulmorph is a good sleeve and takes Rushing Jaws almost no time at all to adjust to.

Alienation is INT x 3, and will measure your character's ability to identify the morph as being who they are. In RP terms, a successful test would mean you could look at the morph in the mirror and confidently say that is you, as opposed to a failure where you are anywhere from uneasy to really dysmoprhic about what's looking back at you. Rushing Jaws has an INT of 15, making his baseline test a 45. The same bonuses and penalties apply here too, which makes his target roll a 75 on a d100. He rolled an 18, handily succeeding at the test. Rushing Jaws' new look and sound is one he can easily incorporate into his identity and get comfortable with.

Continuity is WIL x 3, and measures your character's sense of whether or not they are the same being that they were prior to resleeving - as opposed to feeling like a copy or wondering what they missed out on during the time between going to sleep in their last morph and waking up in this one. I won't be requiring continuity tests for the tutorial - the meta on that is that you already made that test when you arrived on Gerlach's servers as infomorphs - but for the sake of example Rushing Jaws' WIL is a 10, which means he'd have to make a 30 to pass the test. None of the modifiers above apply to WIL, it's just a straight success test to make your WIL target. Assuming Rushing Jaws had to make a test, a success might mean that he is able to reassure himself that he is the Rushing Jaws, as opposed to a failure where the doubts of Lack might cause him some stress.

If you want a good example of what a resleeving plays out like, the short story Lack in the Core Rulebook features a character sleeving a fury and going through all of the tests; the part that reads like a continuity test would actually be a success, reflective of the uncertainty of the experience as a consequence of embracing resleeving technology.

Your first order of business will be to select a morph type and roll Integration and Alienation tests. You're loading into a simulation, which might feel weird for characters who don't do a whole lot of that, but this is a top-of-the-line simulspace you're loading into with hyper-real rendering and true-to-life fidelity. Information about these rolls can be found in the Core rulebook and on the Cheat Sheet. Choose the morph you want to sleeve in this level, make your tests, and then load in to the simulation!
 
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Mach Infinity
I thought Breakout was about breaking bricks with a ball.

Mach would’ve told Nerrix, but he wasn’t the type to listen. Mach didn’t play shooters much, and he never fucking TOUCHED breakout. But Mach’s objective wasn’t to win, now was it? He wasn’t going to sabotage their chances, or throw the match, but he wasn’t optimistic about his chances. Still, as he loaded in, he at least realized he’d have some fun. He didn’t even have to look down to recognize that he was a fighting kite. He felt his highly reconfigurable body right away. He sleeved these things whenever he could and he loved it. Felt just like the real thing, too. Then again, it was easy to make simulated synths. The moment he was absolutely finished loading in, everything twitched as he tested all of his control surfaces. Motion was good, felt brand new, straight off the factory floor. Engines were on point, he was hovering as he surveyed, remaining in place despite trying to circle. Right, he was being held in place so he couldn’t get a head start or steal the good weapons. Only other person loaded was a Fury. They were humming, real quiet. He’d have expected showtunes, but it was long wailing noises. Were those... Whale calls? Did he get randomly paired with an uplift? Well, this could get interesting in a hurry.
“... You normally sim Fury, or...?”
 
Vidar Crosswinds
Breakout Tournament: Outpost Sigma

Vidar staggered, tripped, and held his hand to brace against a fall, but never fell. And in that unpleasant moment of his mind calculating a fall that wasn't happening and the intense little jolt that followed was when he realized the game had loaded. Or at least mostly. He found that VR landscape would not let him traverse in a natural manner, holding him in space in a way his mind absolutely didn't like on a personal and visceral level, as it broke all laws of physics- for a moment he panicked. This was not the map zone, he reminded himself firmly. This was a corporate money grab at gameifying the most terrifying event in human history. And honestly that was preferable.

The world around him looked real enough save for being monochrome, but the sleeve? This morph? The usually visceral sensation of being made of meat? Lacking.
The sleeve was fake. not even synthetic. Just fake. Like dress shirt made out of paper fake. Like he could feeling it chaffing against his thoughts as he moved his hands, fake. His mind liked being made out of meat. Meat brains were at the top of the list on Fire walls how to take care of your new async pamphlet. They hadn't actually given him a pamphlet. But, he wished they'd actually given him a pamphlet.

I don't know how people live like this

[The time dilation should be working in your favor, psychologically.] Penny informed him. [It's a game. You used to like VR games.]

This was true. But the sensation was not something he could shrug off. He felt like he had to stretch something. Like he was trying and failing to roll over while tangled up in too many blankets. He just had to move this something a little to the left- and that something was his internal body map. He was in crooked. Or at least it felt it.

And then, there was also he persistent sensation of something slick and viscous living inside his spinal cord that had been plaguing him when he had uploaded this fork. It had not magically vanished because his ego had been copied and sleeved. He'd be happy as long as the sensation staid out of his mouth. Please and thank you.

Despite VR feeling worse than a cheap bikini wax he didn't personally feel any worse off than he'd sat down to upload his fork. The Morph itself had all the traits he rather enjoyed about Furies; muscle, low center of gravity, calf muscles like justice, and the kind of hair cut that went out of style in the 70's and was inexplicably back. Mid tone skin, brown hair, brown eyes. Comfortably generic. He always preferred when his morphs looked like nothing special. It was easier to be himself when the morph didn't particularly look or feel like anyone else to start. He preferred to be boy shaped but Furies were useful and being sufficiently butch usually scratched the same itch for him.

He glanced at the other two figures, a fury and a kite and the other two still grayed. Two of them were supposed to be RJ and Devin. He doubt either of them were the kite. The one sing the song of his people was definetly RJ. And he had started thinking of it that way, some what sarcastically each time he'd pulled the rather impressive vocal stunt, however he'd realized a while ago that it was objectively a true statement.

He wondered if they were supposed to pretend not to know each other- he waved at them both, because of who he was as a person. The game was supposed to be random after all and Starglass hadn't specified on that front. He'd see how long it took Devin to ruin that one and play it by ear.

"Just to be transparent I haven't done VR in years, " He said to both of them, just to see what he was working with, vocally. It was always fun to here what kind of accent he'd get in Norwegian. Today it was a light British posh lilting. Delightful. He hadn't expected that in a simulation.

He tried physically stretching, on the off chance that might help the sensation of Vr being deplorably fake. But. Nope. Not even a little. He was just going to have to deal with it. He had like VR a lot when it first came out...

Hey Penny, he thought to his muse. Remind me when we get home. To see if any of MMandM survived the fall. I just remembered monster factory was a thing.

[I will. But I'm judging you.]

My moms fucking loved those men. But fair.
 
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Devin Murphy
Breakout Tournament: Outpost Sigma

Sending them to a video game tournament might have been the weirdest thing Firewall had done. It was a strong top five contender, at least. But it would be fun.

Or at least, Devin thought so until he uploaded into the weird blurry simulspace. That was fine. So was the way he fit into the simulmorph. But something felt off. It was a good upload, and the splice morph felt fine. Or it should have. Something about it gnawed at him, deep in the back of his mind.

It was a good sync. Right?

[Right,] the Grim told him, a little extra worry tingeing his small voice. There were three others with him, and he assumed the two furies were Rushing Jaws and Vidar. Devin always idly considered fury morphs, when the chance came up, but he could never bring himself to sleeve in a female morph. He'd been stuck that way far too long for him to ever want to do it again intentionally. Somebody else had picked a goddamned fighting kite, and that was the kind of extra that promised a lot of fun. One of the furies spoke, and he was fairly sure it was Vidar.

"It's like riding a bicycle" Devin said, and meant to say more, but the second he heard his new voice he knew exactly why the simulmorph felt so viscerally wrong. The thick Boston accent he could never shake came out several octaves too high, the timbre unmistakably feminine, and he recoiled.

"What the fuck!" he shouted, and started examining the simulmorph with a panicked frenzy. It was a little taller than he normally stood (which wasn't saying much), pale and freckled and blue eyed and just close enough to his own morph that it made everything worse, because it almost looked like him, almost, but wasn't. And it was definitely, definitely female.

It was like he'd never gotten out, and was trapped again in a body that didn't fit.

[Oh no,] said the Grim, sounding as deeply upset as Devin felt.

I thought I made sure this wouldn't happen! What the fuck! Devin thought back at him, mostly to complain. He hadn't had to deal with dysphoria in a long time, and it sucked just as badly as he remembered.

He wanted to go home, to the right body, the one made just for him. But it was too late, and now the only way to go home was to make it through.

"Fuck," he said again, furiously. He crossed his arms over his chest and slouched, instinctively trying to mask the shape of his new morph, trying to make it look a little more masculine.

[You're going to be okay,] the Grim told him. [It's just a game. It's fake.]

Devin nodded, even thought it felt anything but.
 
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Abigail Hammond
Outpost Sigma

So this was probably Abby's worst non-hypercorp gig. I mean, at least she wasn't being married off again, but like. A video game she's not allowed to hack? What fresh bullshit was this? She uploaded into the simulspace from hell too. Taking stock of her surroundings and her body, everything else seemed fine though. They let her keep her suit, it seemed, at least. And then she saw her shiny dress shoes.

"They forgot my feet. Well, shit. Not the first time I've dealt with normal toes I guess," she grumbled before looking at the others in the area with her.

Hey, uh, Prox? Do we recognize any of these people, or are we playing one of the hardest games in the system with randos?

[I don't believe so, Abigail. Not visually, at least.]

Fucking great. Better have someone who can at least shoot in this crew I guess.

On the outside, she smiled and gave a short wave to everyone. "Hey, I'm Abby. I don't suppose any of you have played this before?"
 
Breakout Tournament: Outpost Sigma

"This is Raja Actual to Outpost Sigma, does anybody copy?" A voice asks over the intercoms within the simulated room you are all in, as soon as the last person completes loading in. Their voice, garbled by interference as it is, is first distinct noise made by something other than the players. "I'm reading five in the security armory, I hope to God you can hear me."

As Raja Actual speaks to you all on the outpost's intercom, the previously gray and amorphous textures and shapes around you begin to resolve into shape and take on color: as he continues to speak, the rough outline of weapon racks - mostly empty but not entirely so - take shape, along with a desktop cornucopia machine and several suits of armor. The indistinct din of noises begins to resolve into sound, still dull and quiet beneath Raja Actual's voice but beginning to sharpen into clarity.

"Time is short, and so I will make this brief. There is a data drive within the security armory with data critical to battling the outbreaks, and we need you to get it out of there. The data is encrypted, you will have to get the decryption key from the other side of the outpost, at the Ops Center. From there, you will need to call for evac and get to the hangar on the other side of the outpost so we can get you all out of there. Remember: get the drive from the armory, get the decryption key from the Ops center, and make sure both get out on the evac."

By now, much of the room has taken on its color - although there is not much color to the room, the lights flickering as damage to the outpost's systems has compromised the lighting inside the armory. The Cornucopia Machine is on standby mode, and the chirping of consoles accompanies the din of life support systems - and what sound like the clatter of gunshots from far away.

"There is more," Raja Actual says. "Outpost Sigma has been compromised, but our reports on the situation are scattered. We believe we have personnel within the base in need of assistance, and we need you to make best efforts to rescue them. As well, we have several other data drives throughout the facility that have valuable information to our cause. However, in all cases, your priority is to recover the drive within the armory, the key within the Ops center, and an escape from the hangar. Good luck, operatives."

As Raja Actual is cut off, you feel yourselves snap into place: taking a step forward, you feel your simulmorph propel you through the light Lunar gravity (17% of Earth's). The simulation has brought the surrounding space into full hyperfidelity: the sounds are near-indistinguishable from the real thing, the simulation's graphics near-impossible to tell apart from the real thing, the feeling of cold air on your skin or registering to your morph's thermo-sensors as authentic as any you have felt in consensus reality. Your muses inform you that a TacNet within the simulation is booting up, which syncs all of your inserts onto a single network and allows you a silent means of communication and the real-time sharing of tactical data.

A second after Raja Actual's transmission ends, something slams into the door behind you all.

The door holds, having been locked down at some point: the thing on the other side roars in animal fury, slamming its bulk into the door again - hard enough to shake the door. Outraged that the security door refuses to give way, the thing on the other side bellows, slamming into it again before punching at it with what sound like huge fists. Besides these, there is another sound, something like a scraping or tearing noise, as though the monster on the other side has more than two limbs to assault the door with. You can hear wild malevolence in its bellowing, a beastly promise that it knows you are there and that it will tear down this door to get to you. The door seems to be holding, but it's hard to say how much time you have.

You are surrounded by racks that have been emptied out: only a handful of weapons remain. The nanofabricator is inert and unresponsive to your inserts. The door on the other side is open out to the corridors of Outpost Sigma, into hallways that lead you know not where. There may be ways of finding out how to get to where you need to go from where you are now, but you will need to think fast.

The game has begun.
 
Rushing Jaws​

Rushing Jaws bites his own tongue to keep from shouting in response to the thing slamming into the door.

[Okay, looks like we don't have much time, and it sounds like whatever's on the other side of that door wants in real bad, so we gotta be ready for it,] Rushing Jaws broadcasts on the TacNet. Unwilling to take his chances with the thing in a fistfight, his first impulse is to turn and ransack the weapons racks for anything that might be useful.

[By the way, name's RJ, wish we coulda met under better circumstances but we got ugly coming up behind us and not a lot of time to figure this out,] Rushing Jaws adds, thankful that his rep-net profiles have been disabled as part of the simulation. Something on the rack catches his eye and puts a smile on his Fury's face.

"Oh fuck yeah," he says, drawing an automatic rail-gun from the rack. The weapon's induction coils warm up as soon as it detects his Fury's grip on the handle, and he keeps his finger well off the trigger as he surveys the weapon. Keeping the barrel pointed toward the ceiling, Rushing Jaws surveys the racks of equipment, somewhat chagrined to see how little is left.

[Okay, looks like they gave us a pretty even spread here,] he says on the TacNet, having Māzǔpó highlight each weapon on the TacNet feed as he points it out: [I'm seeing another automatic rifle besides the one I got, only it's a firearm. We got three SMGs - 2 firearms, 1 rail, six medium pistols all firearm, coupla laser pulsers and particle beam bolters configured for atmo, a diamond ax, and - hold up!]

Pausing, Rushing Jaws can't help but laugh as he crouches down and picks up some kind of underbarrel attachment: [a goddamned micromissle launcher! I call dibs on this puppy, I promise I know how to use it.]

Continuing on: [We got six high explosive grenades, a shard pistol and a shredder. Eyeballing it, looks like we got plenty of ammo to get us through to the far end of the outpost. I strongly advise you pick whichever one you're best with so we can either prepare for this fucker or make sure we're gone before it can crash the party.]

Aloud, Rushing Jaws says: "I'm eyeing one of these ARs, don't mind using either the firearm or the railgun as long as I get to keep the micro-missle launcher. Also-" Rushing Jaws nods over to the racks of armor on the nearby wall, "I'm looking to take one of those heavy armor suits. I don't mind taking point as long as I got some armor to keep me cozy."

Next order of business: figuring out what the hell it is you're here to do. Raja Actual spelled it out for you pretty plainly: you've got to find the Data Drive somewhere in the room you're standing in, find the decryption key in the Ops Center at the far end of Outpost Sigma, and then get both on a shuttle out of here. Raja Actual spelled out some side objectives for you, as well: it sounds like there are survivors in the facility in need of rescue along with some additional data drives that you could pick up along the way - but whether or not you think it work the effort is up to you.

How you will pursue your objectives is also up to you. As a squad, you should all be on the same page - mavericks don't last long against the horrors of the Fall - but you have a great deal of operational latitude. Do you opt for stealth and subversion? A coordinated direct assault? Finding a way out and side-stepping everything to get to your objective? The situation may call for different approaches depending on the context.

For instance, whatever is on the other side of that door really wants in, and it sounds like it wants to do bad things to you. You have some options as to how to deal with it: you could set a trap for it, either by preparing a high-explosive surprise for it to trip over as soon as it breaks down the door, by hiding among the racks of weapons and staging an ambush, by moving out of the armory and finding superior position with which to shoot at it, or just plain grabbing your gear and getting the hell out of the room. It will come down to what you think is the best way to deal with the situation.

In addition to your active skills, your character has knowledge skills, which represent areas of study or knowledge they have about the world. Knowledge skills are by nature more abstract than active skills but represent your characters' knowledge of things that you the players won't necessarily know. As an example, someone with Academic: Engineering or Profession: Habitat Ops might be able to discern how much time you have before the security door gives way. Someone with Profession: Spycraft or Academic: Computer Science might be able to use the consoles in the armory to figure out where the Data Drive is hidden to get to it quickly. Someone with Interest: Lunar Habitats or a specialization in Habitat Engineering might be able to intuit the layout of the facility if no one can acquire a layout through some other way.

Knowledge skills may sometimes be prompted by the GM, but can also be prompted by the player in the right context. For example, Rushing Jaws made a test on Interest: Weapons to identify the weapons left on the racks. He rolled a 14/80, an excellent success thanks to how he rolled, and was able to identify all of the weapons present on the racks for you all. Now you can equip your team more strategically and have a better sense of your options. If you read something that leads you to wonder if you can apply a knowledge skill to a given situation to learn more about the situation and maybe find a better way forward, then ask the GM! The result could make the difference between succeeding at the mission or two weeks of lack.

Now that you know what kind of weapons are present, you should decide which one suits your character's skills the best and grab them. Rushing Jaws really wants an Automatic Rifle to put his Kinetic Weapons skills to good use, and he also really wants the underbarrel micromissle launcher because he knows how to use it to best effect. You don't have a lot of time to argue over who can use what equipment in this situation, so it might behoove you to grab what you know how to use well and then sort out what's left once the threat has passed.

A note on the cornucopia machine: it is a working nanofabricator, which means that if you can access it, you might be able to fab up some extra equipment depending on time, feedstock, and access privileges you have for the fabricator. However, because nanofabrication is such a powerful technology, it is frequently very heavily regulated, and will often involve hacking the device in order to unleash its full potential. In consensus reality, nanofabrication is also a time-intensive process, with more complicated devices taking much longer for the nanobots to assemble. If you're feeling lucky and/or curious about what might be on offer for this cornucopia machine, someone may want to take a look at it.

But remember: you don't have much time.
 
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First of all he was not expecting a fighting Kite. Hell yeah. third of all the other two were both ladies- where was devin? And then one of them just started cursing like mad.

There he is, Vidar thought with a frown.

They didn't have much time to put in a reasuring word to him as the game started up, dropping finally into pychiscs engine that at least partially satisfied him. His body wasn't ready for a reflex response, and he skittered back ungracefully as the thing hit the door. He tried not to laugh- there were strangers here and he's been told by Devin that his nervous laughter wasn't very reasuring. Vidar was quick on his feet- usually. But the VR had him at a disadvantage. He wanted to be half way across the room before RJ had rattled off even half the armory inventory.

If I lived on the moon, where would I hide my data?

He ran through his personal preferences and that was always inside a wall or something substantial that couldn't be moved. The logical place of insertion, if you want it to be found and accessed later, was to put it somewhere people commonly interfaced- his eyes found security console by the open door.

"RJ, I would never ever come between some one and their micro missile launcher. you look at that thing like you're going to date it. Any one else want this axe? No? great!" He grabbed it and moved towards his target, the paneling on the other end of the room. His movements were still clunky, they lacked his usual clean strides and direct movements. It was fairly obvious he had not integrated well, even if you didn't know him.

[Found the data.] he announced as he used the axe to smash open the paneling. A moment of digging after proved himself right and he held it up the data cache over his head and shaking it a little as he came back over.

"Hang in there buddy," Vidar tell Devin quiet like- grabbing an smg for himself and for him. "I'm just your average knife goblin. So if you wanna take point, take point. I vote we move and fast? What about you guys?" He points between the Kite and the Exalt. Then included Devin in his finger waggle to keep up appearances. It was vague whether he was asking for their opinion on tactics or what they were good at.

[I'm Viddy, btw] He added on the tacnet like an after thought.
 
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Vidar's quick retrieval of the data pulled Devin out of his sulky funk a little. Passing him the big smg helped even more.

"I accept the ritual offering of submachine gun," Devin said, and tried to ignore how fucking awful his voice was. "I vote we let RJ marry the missile launcher and get the fuck out of here before whatever the fuck that is gets in." He jerked his thumb in the direction of the locked doors. "Also hi, I'm Devin. Please don't let this awful morph fool you, I am a man. This is a mistake," he added, gesturing at his morph. "I own a beard and a penis. Anyway. Ops Center. Decryption Key. Yes?"
 
"Yeah, gimme like... two seconds to actually get us a map. Someone grab me a pistol while I do that, please and thank you."

Five minutes later, she had the map and had thrown it onto the TacNet for everyone to see. "Alright, cool. Looks like we can either try and take the tram, assuming it's there, or run for this garage and hope there's enough buggies for us to pile into. Either way, the big nasty on the other side of the door here is probably gonna come after us. RJ, right? You seem like you know the most about things that go boom, can you set a trap with the grenades?"
 
Vidar was one leg into a suit of light armor when he made a noise that sounded more like he'd dropped the axe on his foot than like some one had just put a helpful map in the the tacnet. Penny had the the reflexes of well- a muse and it was very quickly blurred out. He breathed through his teeth for a while, getting the armor in place. It was never really about maps- okay it was ostensibly about maps- but it was about the map zone. And the Map Zone was a state of mind, a literal place, a thing that happened. And the concept of it smoldered hot at the edges of his memory. Sometimes he could look at a map- but not today. No one thought his fear of maps was stupider than Vidar- he did infiltration for the space iluminati and he couldn't god damn look at a map? It didn't help that he was actually an infomorph right now- He felt sick. The slick feeling in his spine invaded his guts.
[Penny could you get me a written summary of that picture please. Thank you.]
He closed up the armor's visor so he could make his 'I saw a map and I didn't like it face' in peace. He supposed he was ready. What a fun game so far!
 
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Devin, also pulling armor on, put a hand on Vidar's shoulder. "I feel you," he told Vidar, giving his shoulder a pat. He knew it was the map, but Vidar's feelings on maps seemed to align pretty well with his feelings about his current morph. At least the light armor didn't quite fit, meaning that it made the morph look rather shapeless.
 
Mach Infinity
I'm breaking out of here tonight!

Mach didn't like this already. In fact, he hated this. He wasn't the only one who was inexperienced with games like this, and two different people were experiencing major morph issues. FUCK. And Nerrix wanted to know more? Pfft. These bozos were way too unprofessional and uncoordinated to be any kind of setup. RJ was the only one who even seemed slightly militarily inclined, and though Vidar was arguably competent for finding that drive, he was obviously a little twitchy. Yeah, Nerrix was gonna agree about this being a fuckin' waste of time. At least the newbie could hack. Well, he had a map. He had guns built into himself. What the fuck else did he need, aside from that decryption key? Nothing but open road, sky, and Eurobeat.
"I'm Marcus. I don't play shooters much, and I sure as hell don't play this one. So, I'm thinking I fuckin' speedrun this bullshit so I don't waste too much time here. Shouldn't have let him talk me into this..."
He said, pausing just short of the door as thought invaded his head... Thoughts about Nerrrix's displeasure, and how running off alone was bound to kill him. Fuck that, he was going. Then he heard a MOST UNWELCOME VOICE in his head. Meter.
{No. Stay on mission. Traffic jam.}
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. Mach HATED this. If he didn't learn anything, he would get thrown back into that simulated hellscape. Ffffffuuuuuuck. He almost growled as he turned back to the others and addressed them.
"... Fuck my muse AND my manager. Fine, okay, I don't need SHIT from this fucking armory, and I've been firmly told I can't just run off and speedrun the objective grab by myself. So I vote we all fucking run like there's death, taxes, and clingy exes on the other side of that door."
 
Breakout Tournament: Outpost Sigma

Five minutes go by as the squad wrangles with their equipment, their new reality, or the uncooperative systems of Outpost Sigma. The thing behind the door has been relentless in its assault, and the security door - while holding - is starting to show dents and is visibly misaligned with the door frame. The bellowing and tearing have been constant, and show no signs of slowing down. It won't be much longer before the thing on the other side breaks through.

Rushing Jaws

[Quite the motley crew we've been assigned], Māzǔpó comments.

Yeah well, nothing for it but to make a squad out of 'em, Rushing Jaws thinks as the environmental seals on his new helmet snap into place, accompanied by the hiss of atmo-circulation within his heavy combat armor. Besides, they're no worse than the assholes D-A paired us with back in the day - I can work with Devin and Vidar, and the other two...we'll probably be fine so long as they do their share of the hunting.

"I could probably rig some kind of trap up, yeah, but I dunno how much time we have and it sounds like we're looking to bail - I'm not interested in being trampled mid-project by whatever this thing is. Another thing: I dunno how far we can run before this fucker breaks down the door and dashes for us; I strongly advise we find better positions to blast this fucker from, because I really don't like the idea of whatever this thing is nipping at our flukes."

Weapons check, Rushing Jaws thinks, going over his gear: the automatic rail gun is loaded and hot, with five clips' worth of additional ammo. The underbarrel launcher snapped into place with a minimum of fuss and even had a micromissle in the chamber, along with the four others that the gods of this simulspace so generously provided. He grabs a pistol and hands one to Abby as she puts the map up on the TacNet before grabbing one for himself, along with some extra ammo. His armor conforms to his Fury's frame within seconds of syncing with his inserts, and fits his Fury like a well-tailored suit. A smartlink or exosuit would be just the thing, but if wishes were fishes...

"Guess I'll grab some of these grenades in case we find a use for 'em," Rushing Jaws says, taking two and clipping them to his armor's belt. "Prefer seekers, myself, but it can't hurt to have 'em."

Breaking into a trot practiced enough to feel natural, Rushing Jaws takes point, happy to find nothing in the atrium outside of the security office - right away. From the door to the far end of the chamber is twenty-five meters, and at the far end of the chamber is the arched entrance to the tram tunnel. The tram is nowhere in sight, likely on the opposite end of the outpost. On either side of the tram's loading docks are corridors with stairs leading down into the facilities; off to Rushing Jaws' right is the short hallway to what the map tells him is a buggy garage.

[Fuck - this atrium's shit for cover,] Rushing Jaws broadcasts over TacNet, scanning the room with increasing frustration. [We got four options: head into the tram tunnel and make a run for it, head down into the facilities to try and find some of those survivors or other data drives, take the garage and ride a buggy out to the other side of the outpost, or stand and fight. Between the five of us and our guns, I'm willing to bet we've got enough firepower to take this thing down, and the atrium's big enough for us to take up position and turn it into a killzone. Hell, I got a micromissile with this bastard's name on it. Y'all with me?]
 
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Devin Murphy
When it came to situations like this, Devin always approached it from a scum scavenger's point of view--you get in and you get out, as fast as possible. His crew would have never attempted to fight what was behind them now. They'd have been down into the facilities, looking for cover and other treasures to snatch, and then be off again. But this was not a scum crew, and asking Rushing Jaws to sneak was, Devin guessed, not going to go well.

Besides, the way he felt right now, he might not have been up for it either.

[What the hell. It'll be easier if we aren't getting chased the whole damned time,] he said through TacNet.
 
"Tell us how you really feel? I am right fucking with you with taxes but you can't speed run the apocalypse and I'm judging you," Vidar said with his usual candor of unknown sarcasm levels.
[Sure. I've always wanted to die in a video game! ] He agreed with RJ becuase he trusted RJ. And also because fuck this guy thinking he can speed run a fall simulation. Inside the room he pointed at Abbey and then at the last bit of armor, "You might want to grab that- even if you can't get it on till later. I'm getting the fuck out of this room now- byebye" Now most translators would in fact tell you that what he had just said was a cheerful goodby and in Norwegian, however the direct translation was "Have it good." and there was nothing good in that room. And with that he headed out, almost gracefully and backwards out the door, leaving the sounds of the abomination clawing its way towards them in his wake.
He caught up withe RJ, axe over his shoulder, and looked at him and said; "Sup."
 
"Okay, here's the plan," Rushing Jaws says to Vidar and Devin, "the cover here ain't great, but that cuts both ways - which makes me think that if we catch whatever's on the other side out in the open, we can just shred it with concentrated fire."

[Marcus, Abby, I know this is a game, but this ain't no arcade sim-game: trust me when I say it sure as shit's gonna feel like the real deal if you're still over there when ugly breaks through. For all our' sake, y'all probably want to be on this side of the door and help bring this fucker down.]

Glancing around, Rushing Jaws tries to search out any sort of viable cover to help position the squad...

...and finds, to his dismay, that this room really is shit for cover. The rails to keep people from tripping over into the depression of the tramway have some kind of glass plating - fine for aesthetics, useless to stop bullets. There are some small gardens in the atrium, but nothing tall enough to provide real cover, and the corners that one could tuck behind are too close to the door for comfort. Every slam against the door is a reminder to hurry the fuck up and get everyone into position before they run out of time, adding pressure to the desperate calculus of positioning and maneuvering...
 
Mach Infinity
Run, walk, crawl? I’m flying!

Mach reluctantly hovered after the others, but everyone’s words were like fucking knives at his throat, guns pressed to his temples, fingers looming over big red buttons. Mach almost growled again. Then he latched onto Vidar’s fucking face and put a pulser barrel over each eyeball.
“Gee, I didn’t think you wanted a leisurely stroll through the FUCKING APOCALYPSE, but sure, sure. Where the fuck were you? Charon? Phobos? Io, maybe? I WAS ON EARTH! I fought as long as I lived and breathed, and I told myself that once it was over, I’d never deal with it again! BUT, bullshit capitalist game designers who weren’t even there made a fuckin’ real-as-hell sim for it! And then bullshit contracts means I can’t go against my manager when he says I gotta play it because some rich asshole invited me to PTSD: the video game! So, please, HATE ME for wanting to get past this before I have a nervous breakdown.”
He said, inputting things into tacnet at the same time and eventually letting go of Vidar and floating off. Who the hell did they think they were. The tacnet, on the other hand...
Accept it or not, this is a game. Wasting limited ammunition on optional encounters and auxiliary objectives is pointless. Cover is shit for a firefight, but if you lay flat, the foliage is good for visual cover. Hide, and know that I’m ready to draw him off if he gets too close.
He said, deciding to latch onto a high section of ceiling and initiating his chameleon skin. RJ assumed he and everyone else could just outgun whatever was rolling through, but Mach anticipated heavy armor, a lotta mass, and a lotta momentum. Something that could be gunned down, but would probably deal damage to whoever was closest, and certainly wouldn’t carry any weapons or equipment worth the investment.
 
Same Buddy, Vidar thought to himself as the temper tantrum unfolded, But go off I guess.
[Have you considers that making jokes? To cope? Is also not healthy?] Penny reminded him.
Vidar watched his new morph in the croshairs of the tacnet. Made direct eye contact with the camera and licked the blade of his axe like the immature Oslo knife goblin he still was at the core of his being.
"First of all-" He said once the gun was removed from his face, " I was in fucking Oslo. Second of all- RJ. Can we keep him? He makes me feel like I'm coping?"
He turned and looked around the room with a passing glance, "Third of all I think if we hit the back of of this room we'll have about three seconds before anything can get from the door to our position- assuming it doesn't have rocket boosters. What do you think our DPS is? Doable?"
 
Abby sighed and snagged an SMG and the last of the light armor on her way out of the room and into the Atrium.
"You guys are fuckin immature, and that's coming from someone who was essentially a professional party girl for fiveish years," she said to Marcus and Viddy, as she crossed the threshold. "Arguing will just get us killed faster, we need to work as a team. I vote we follow RJ's plan. Normally I have bodyguards do the shooting if it needs to be done, but I do know how to operate on of these."
Dropping the armor at her feet to deal with later, she checked the SMG to make sure it was ready to go, and set herself up in a firing position facing the door.
 
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"I only work with idiots," Devin told Abby, settling into position. He felt better, knowing that something was about to happen, and that they were poised for action. Not great, but better. He kept an eye on Mach, just in case. "I'm proud of you, getting your own hands dirty," he said to Abby. "Even if it is only in a video game. You ever shoot anything that wasn't a target?" He was mostly needling Abby out of a misplaced sense of friendliness--on missions like this, taking the piss out of each other was pretty standard.
 
Rushing Jaws​

"Thank you for the support, Abby," Rushing Jaws says to her as he glances around the room to ensure everyone is in position and as far from the door as they can be. Satisfied, he trains his railgun on the door, flicking on the micromissile launcher's laser sight before placing his hand on its grip, finger above the trigger.

"Weapons hot everyone, I don't think that door's got much-"

Rushing Jaws is cut short by the horrific tearing of metal from within the armory; tensing up, he keeps his sights trained on the door, bracing for whatever horror is breaking through.

Breakout Tournament: Outpost Sigma
The furious bellowing from the other side of the door now rings much clearer with a hole in the door, which now sounds much more human than you would have initially figured such bellowing could be. The bellowing of whatever assaults the door takes on a new urgency now that the door is so close to failing, redoubling its assault and further tearing through the metal of the door: those of you with the ear for it hear animal panic and terror in the bellowing, like the thing is furious at whatever unknown terror drives it to tear through the door to get to you. One final slam into the door knocks it free from its frame, screeching as its shorn metal grinds against the outpost's floor before landing with a metallic whomp.

You all watch as something - someone, you quickly realize - stumbles through the armory, frantically searching it, their frenzied breathing audible clear from across the room as their morph recovers from the effort of tearing down the security door. The flickering lights of the armory make it difficult to make out the shape of the interloper - which quickly proves to be a mercy, revoked as it stumbles out into the light of the atrium. Bloodied from its effort, the morph that stalks out into the atrium is wild-eyed, huge, and covered in spindly, alien limbs.

bruisermorph.pngcrysacid.png

Those of you with the eye for morphs recognize that whatever this morph has become, they was once a Bruiser; those of you who don't see a hulking, frothing biomorph underneath the dangling, crustacean-like limbs that end in wicked claws. It is impossible to ignore the way that the chitinous, alien limbs sprout hapazardly from the morph, clawing or swiping at the air as the morph's eyes dart around the room, tracking some kind of invisible targets. More than the limbs, the morph's huge body is near to covered in wicked-looking spurs that jut out from every which way, having torn through the morph's frayed vacsuit and even swaying to and fro. The terror in its breathing is now evident to those of you with an eye for such things - raising the possibility that beneath those horrid limbs and the madness that has seized this morph, there is some ego within, experiencing all of this in uncomprehending terror.

The thing - you aren't sure if it is a transhuman, a rogue experiment, a victim of a nanoplague, or a monster - looks up at the five of you, its wild eyes recognizing you. It starts calling at you, first in soft grunts that quickly rise to wild screaming that agitate the unnatural limbs. Its huge hands open and close, the claws adorning them clicking into place, the jagged claws on the end of its outgrown limbs snapping at the air in anticipation of new prey.

There is no time left to run.

Behold, an ugly boy! Before we get to the fun part, it's time to talk about how stress mechanics work.

As Sentinels (or sentinels to be), you're going to see a lot of awful things, like that nasty boy up there. That is going to be very stressful for your characters, and you will thus have to make a WIL save to avoid taking SV that will push your characters toward derangement, disorders, and eventual dissolution of your ego into a mess of irretrievable insanity.

Before we kick off the fight, you will all need to roll WIL x 3. If you save, you take no SV, but if you don't then you'll have to roll a d10 and then divide the result by two (because it's just a sim game but holy shit that thing is upsettingly well-rendered). You will then want to keep that tally in mind and know where your trauma threshold is, because if your SV exceeds a trauma threshold, you take a Trauma and a derangement to go with it. Most of you should be at zero, but Devin might be in a real state of affairs here.

We'll go over traumas and derangements as they crop up more, but you will all want to give me WIL x 3 rolls to see how much this nasty boy freaks you out before the fight kicks off.

Once your stress is tallied up, it's time to throw down, and that means figuring out who among us is ready to act fast and first.

Your initiative is indicated on your character sheet as INIT, but you can also find it by adding your REF + INT aptitudes and dividing the result by five. For example, Rushing Jaws has both of those set to 15, so his base INIT is 6. He gets a +1 to INIT from a trait, which brings his base INIT to 7.

Determining who actually goes first invovles rolling 1d10 and adding your base INIT to the score. For instance, RJ could roll a 6, which would mean his initiative for this round would be 13 - a pretty solid score, considering. Every combatant would roll for initiative, and then we'd rank them all to see who goes in what order. It's the same basic idea as any other TTRPG y'all have probably played.

One thing to be aware of: you can spent 1 point of Moxie to instantly bump yourself to the front of the action turn, basically giving you the best initiative roll if you're willing to spend the point on it. Sometimes you might need to get the first hit in.

Alternatively, you can choose to delay your action until you're ready to jump in. Simply declare you are delaying your action, and then declare when you want to jump back in. Note that you lose your spot in the initiative if you take more than one action turn to take your action, so make sure you think carefully when delaying your action.

Once we know who's going when, the real fun begins.

Rounds in Eclipse Phase break down into Action Turns. In game terms, Action Turns generally last about three seconds (sometimes fights won't always neatly map into three second chunks, but sometimes the module you're in will depressurize in fifteen seconds and so every second counts); as there is only so much you can do in three seconds' time, the first thing you need to decide is the kind of action you want to take.

There are four kinds of actions: automatic, quick, complex, and task actions. Automatic actions happen automatically (go figure), requiring no input from the player; these include things like perception and resisting damage. Quick actions are simple things like aiming your gun, changing your stance, or activating an implant; you can get around one to three of these in during your action turn. Complex actions are actions that might require most of or all of your attention, like firing a weapon at a target, engaging in acrobatics, or disarming a bomb; you can only usually get one of these in per turn. Task actions are actions that are so complex as to require more than three seconds to accomplish, like hacking a system, cooking a meal, or trimming your bonsai; these require your entire focus in order to complete, and you won't be able to really do anything else while carrying out a task action if you want to do it right.

The lines between each of these actions can be pretty blurry, and there's room to fit in a quick action on the same turn you do a task action. If you're ever not sure of what kind of action the thing you want to do would rank as, then do not hesitate to ask. Better to ask a silly question now to avoid a confusion rather than press on and potentially goof something up.

Once you know what it is you want to do, then you proceed with the action, making whatever tests you want to give a try.

The game makes a distinction between Action Phases and Action Turns, and here's why: the former represent 'rounds' of action, the latter represent the actual actions you can make. There are up to four turns within an action phase, depending on the Speed of your character (which will usually be 1 unless you have nurachem, psi, or some fancy modifier that gives you an additional speed, representing your character's enhanced neurology and ability to act quickly). Everybody gets at least one Action Turn, but depending on your Speed, you might get a second, third, or even fourth Action Turn, giving you the chance to do a lot more damage or get a lot more done in three seconds' time. Once everyone's Action Turns are used up, the Action Phase ends, and we're on to the next one, and so on until the scene is resolved.

Okay, so that was a whole lot of set up, but we're here now!

Combat in Eclipse Phase is handled via an opposed test, with the attacker rolling the skill on the kind of weapon or technique they want to use, and the defender rolling Fray to see if they can avoid it.

Step one is for a character to declare an attack, which means you declare to the GM that you want to attack a target, and tell me how you want to attack them. For example, Rushing Jaws might opt to fire his micromissile launcher at the big ugly up there: he would declare that he is doing so, and would line up his Seeker Weapons skill (60) to get ready to make the roll.

Step two is for the defender respond to the attack. Defense is always an automatic action unless is surprised or incapacitated. You generally roll your Fray skill to defend an attack, and there's several distinct conditions for defense. A melee attack is dodged with your fray skill, but you can also use your own unarmed attack or relevant melee weapon skill to parry or deflect the attack. Ranged attacks can only be defended against with half of your Fray skill (rounding down), representing how hard it is to dodge bullets (and encouraging you to take cover, which can make up for your compromised Fray). Full defense means your character is doing everything they can to Get The Fuck Out of the way during their own action turn - basically you take a Complex Action to get to cover as quick as you can and commit to defending yourself, giving you a nice +30 to your defensive roll (which could help make up for the penalty from ranged attacks). Psi attacks are defended against with a WIL x 2 save, and you can also do a full defense to boost your roll.

Step three is to apply modifiers to the rolls. Does Rushing Jaws have superior positioning? Is the room dusty or foggy, making it harder to line up his target? Does the bad guy have some kind of chameleon cloak on? This is the time to figure out what modifiers apply to the roll. Most of the time the GM will have a short list on hand to be able to apply, so we'll handle this step ahead of your rolls, but sometimes you might be wounded or deranged/tracking your own advantages to apply beforehand. Be sure to consult with us if you think a bonus or penalty should apply!

Step four is to roll some dice: once you have your target number, you roll - as does your opponent.

Step five is to determine the outcome of the rolls. Right out of the book: If the attacker fails, the attack misses completely. If the attacker succeeds and the defender fails, the attack hits. If both attacker and defender succeed in their tests, compare their dice rolls. If the attacker’s dice roll is higher, the attack hits despite a spirited defense; otherwise, the attack fails to connect.

The next steps are to modify for the armor before going on to calculate damage and wounds. The ugly up there might benefit a little from his frayed vacsuit, but RJ's micromissles pack one hell of a punch, and if he lands a hit then this guy's in real trouble. We'd add up the rolls and apply the extra damage as indicated on the weapon tables (available in core), then determine how much damage the ugly takes. If he takes a greater amount of damage than his wound threshold, he takes wounds. We'd then move on to the next person's action turn and repeat the process until someone falls over.

There are a number of complications to combat which I'm not gonna get into just yet because this is probably a lot to take in as it stands - I can bring them up as the opportunities arise and then we can walk through them there. For more information about how all of this works, and a handy summary of the combat order, check out page 193 in core.
 
Abby recoiled and let out a high pitched shriek as the thing burst through the door. She instantly opened fire, spraying bullets just about everywhere but the target, it seemed. Shaking, she lowered her gun and swore when she saw that she hadn't hit it.

(96/55 Kinetic Weapons vs failed Fray test)
 
"What the fuck!?" Rushing Jaws swears, finger on the trigger of the launcher now that his target is in sight. Māzǔpó, remind me to ask Starglass whose sick fuckin idea of a joke this was.

Before she can respond, he pulls the trigger, his grip solid as the micromissile fires, tracking the laser sight toward the thing staring him down. He can see the terror in its eyes as the Bruiser locks eyes with him, chest heaving and alien limbs slashing at the air as the micromissle rapidly closes on his target. Rushing Jaws keeps the laser trained on him, and Bruiser screams as the high-explosive warhead detonates right in front of him. The explosion is muffled by his helmet, but he nonetheless feels the shockwave from the blast, too weak from this far back to stagger but just enough to be felt.

Bruiser struggles to collect itself, wailing first in horror and then in outraged agony: as the smoke clears, you all see stumps or broken roots where Bruiser's chitinous limbs once sprouted from its body, many of them having been blasted off and twitching as their unnatural life fades, the floor also littered with shards of the spurs that once covered it. Further, the Bruiser is down on one knee, and you can see blood on the floor where the mangled mess of bone and flesh of its left leg once was. His mad eyes look to Rushing Jaws, vengeful fury mingling with uncomprehending fear.

Beneath his helmet, staring what he knows to be a crysacid in its exsurgent eyes, Rushing Jaws laughs, savoring the monster's pain and the mess of broken, lifeless limbs surrounding it for daring to menace him and his squad.

{50/60 Seeker Weapons Test VS Crit/Failed Fray}
 
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