Bewm goes to work on the pile of junk and begins to improve it.
• The vehicle’s base speed increases by 5 feet.
• The vehicle gains a +1 Piloting modifier.
• The vehicle gains a +1 attack modifier.
• The vehicle gains a +2 bonus to its EAC.
• The vehicle gains a +2 bonus to its KAC.
• Install a basic energy weapon on the vehicle (imposes a –4 base Piloting penalty on a hit).
• Install a basic kinetic weapon on the vehicle (imposes a –4 base Piloting penalty on a hit).
• Upgrade a weapon to impose an additional –2 penalty to enemy Piloting checks on a successful hit.
Because the current pile of junk is such a mess, Bewm seems to have a difficult time determining where to get started. Taser Face and Kai discuss among themselves which option needs to be worked on alongside Bewm's improvements. In addition to the engineering work that is being done on the machine, they quickly determine they could use other skills besides engineering. Those versed in computers, physical sciences or especially perceptive individuals can also find areas to contribute.
Jena, Inari and Harrac spread out among the crowd to put names to the other racers.
Harrac quickly finds the foe you already knew about Ratrod, the ysoki that Laboni challenged to begin this mess. When he begins banter with him, he seizes the opportunity and hops up on top of a nearby crate to talk to her. As he does so, he plays to the crowd with his conversation and makes fun of Laboni and her crew with laughter from the crowd. The vesk attempts to raise the stakes on the race by further trash-talking with and intimidate the ysoki. Your boasts coupled with yoru insults successfullytaunting Ratrod and he quickly steps down and disappears into the crowd, apparently frustrated and shaken from your boasts.
Jena stumbles across Lemgem, a female feychild gnome who is busy tinkering with her machine. As she begins to boast about the status of her machine, she convinces Lemgem to dangerously overclock her own machine. Lemgem agrees that she will need the extra boost and goes to work as Jena steps back into the crowd and disappears. A few minutes later a loud explosion can be heard before the crowd "Oooooooooohs". An announcer notes, "Lemgem's vehicle has exploded! She has now been removed from the race, bummer!"
Inari finds Velocity, a beautiful silver haired and skinned android. It has self-modified to have both masculine and feminine attributes, and have decorated their clothing, eyelids, and lips with bright, colorful patterns. They engage in brief conversation with Inari when she admits she hasn't ever won a racer before, but they do enjoy shooting all the other racers. Inari gets the feeling that she could probably talk Velocity into an alliance with some relevant banter around the machine they are building.
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Kai and Taser face worked together to speed up the rickety looking vehicle, and to reinforce some of the weaker parts. Thinking quickly, Kai plugged into the racer's main computer and stared in amazement at the spaghetti code that it contained. It was like Laboni had cobbled together the control code from three different vehicles, including a trevonian sand hauler, and then tried to use a complex-looking neural splice to manually train the pieces. It would work - maybe - but it was inefficient. Kai throught he could get at least 10% more efficiency out of the engines and control surfaces with a few minor tweaks to the code.
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When the party arrives at the competitors’ entrance, a small robot informs them of the basic rules of the race: racers and their pit crews are to build and improve their vehicles from the available scrap around the racetrack. Vehicles built at previous junkraces can return. Racers can fire upon other competitors during the race, but firing into the audience is grounds for immediate disqualification; racer weapons must be nonlethal and may affect only opponents’ vehicles.
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Inari mentions to Velocity that she knows the perfect person for her to meet to talk about and directs her to her "crew" before dispersing into the crowd to gather more details from the others.
Inari finds another racers and attempts to talk about all the hardware that Laboni has already successfully installed into her ship. The others she has seen thus far dont even stand a chance.
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Riding high on his success, Harrac seeks out another competitor. He thought he saw a former bounty lurking.
He finally turns a corner and comes chest to face with Kanoa, "there you are, you little weasely bastard. When did you get out? Which one of these wrecks is yours? I'm sure you have no intention of really trying do you?" He nods a few times as his computer AI gives him an update, "just as I thought,there's another active bounty." He lays a heavy hand on the man's shoulder, "tell you what. I'm in a good mood today. So as long as I don't see you anywhere near the podium, I won't come for you until after the race. Understood?" He adds a little extra squeeze to drive the point home before waking back into the crowd.
Bewm goes to work checking out the junkracer to see what it is they are working with and determines the following:
Speed 40 ft., full 400 ft.
EAC 10; KAC 12
Attack energy weapon (–4 to Piloting)
Modifiers +2 Piloting, –3 attack
Passengers 1
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Remote Control Laboni’s junkracer and weaponry can be remotely controlled by the party, allowing them to make attack rolls and attempt Piloting checks in her place.
The vehicle’s base speed increases by 5 feet. [Bewm]
Upgrade a weapon to impose an additional –2 penalty to enemy Piloting checks on a successful hit. Taser Face + Kai
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Install a basic kinetic weapon on the vehicle (imposes a –4 base Piloting penalty on a hit). [Bewm]
The vehicle’s base speed increases by 5 feet. [Kai]
Install a basic energy weapon on the vehicle (imposes a –4 base Piloting penalty on a hit). [Taser Face]
Bewm, Kai and Taser Face all discuss the current state of the junkracer after Bewm's assessment. Dividing the work among the three of them, they all go to work on improving different areas of the machine. Bewm successfully adds a kinetic weapon, Kai tweaks the throttle mechanism to find more speed and Taser Face adds the third weapon onto the device, a basic energy one.
Laboni explains that there were five racers in this competition. You've befriended one (Velocity), eliminated another (Lemgem) and intimidated your main competition (Ratrod), leaving two. Orsis is a male Lashunta who looks to know his stuff about machines given the state of his junkracer. The last is Nyizin, a female Ryphorian soldier who doesn't look very approachable.
Jena and Inari approach Nyizin who doesn't seem to care very much about her boasts, she is deadpan and unresponsive no matter what the android has to say. Inari takes note of the scars on Nyizin's body and couples that together with the dragon bone black market mods on her racer to determine that she intends to win this race no matter the costs. Attempting to play to the battle-scarred woman, Inari finds some common ground with soldier and expresses empathy towards her desires. She
eventually pries some useful information out of her. Despite the information however, Nyizin still insists that she intends to win this race and does not intend to ally with the party.
Harrac chats up Orsis who is very suspicious of the vesk and guarded with this comments. After a minute of chatting with smooth and relaxing words however, the Lashunta seems to calm and agree to ally with them. In a measure of good faith he offers up some useful tips to the newcomers.
Tasfer Face finds the interface for upgrading the weapon he just installed requires utilizes a new firmware than he is used to and his installation attempt fails.
Kai's modification to the control algorithms look like they will cut down on the latency and allow for faster processing of the pilot requests.
Both Harrac and Jena find that that they have already talked to all five other racers already and need to find something else to do.
Bewm tweaks the output from the energy source to provide additional power which in turn boasts the speed of the machine once more. Inari wanders around the competition, but no one pays her much attention as they are nearly ready to begin the race and their efforts are focused on tine tuning their machines.
Jena is able to take a peek at Orsis's junkracer, noting the following features:
Speed 55 ft., full 550 ft.
EAC 10; KAC 12
Modifiers +4 Piloting, –3 attack
Passengers 1
Harrac wanders around trying to get a closer look at a junkracer as well, but isn't able to get close to any of them unfortunately.
A high pitched ysoki voice chimes in excitedly over several loudspeakers simultaneously, "WHO'S RREEEADDDDY FOR A RACE?! Junkracers, this is your ten minute notification!"
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"Bewm, can you help me with these remote actuators? I think we can get the steering rig slaved so that we can help our friend here. And maybe TF can bolt some of those carbon sheath fairing to the rear to partially cover the engines? We'll lose a little acceleration, but it would do a better job of protecting the engine against that scatterlaser I saw on that junkraceer over there."
Assuming I have them all down, and we make the last 2 checks, that would give us
Speed 55 ft., full 550 ft.
EAC 12; KAC 12
Attack energy weapon (–6 to Piloting)
attack energy weapon (-4 to piloting)
attack kinetic weapon (-4 to piloting)
Modifiers +5 Piloting, –2 attack
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When the loudspeakers start shrieking, Harrac takes another quick pass through the pits, investigating the other junkracers looking for anything useful. As he's nearing the last bay, the sun glints off the vibrant purple scales of an attractive Vesk sitting near the start line. He veers over, strutting and grinning, "gulellug ushhere, shrakeautifurag. thurhaakum duruth gorotu ishoinor dufteum ushhuth ulace?"
In their groove now, Taser Face, Kai and Bewm all succeed in accomplishing their goals in improving the junkracer just in time for the race. Harrac is so enamored by the female purple Vesk that he gets sidetracked and temporarily forgets about investigating the opposing junkracers.
Inari tells Kai to connect the positive power directly to the negative power to increase the speed of the junkracer, luckily the operative knows better than to listen to the envoy for engineering advice. Jena isn't able to get close enough look at the racers as the crowds have gotten quite large down near the track.
The siren sounds the final call for the race. All the racers take their place! The race is a 3000' track, and everyone is focused on the finish line. As the racers approach the starting line, you get organized around your remote control station. Laboni climbs aboard and waves at you. Lemgem shoots Jena a furious look with her arms crossed her chest.
The announcer starts off by introducing the contestants. You realize you still haven't given your junkracer a name!
A passerby runes by when Inari speaks 'Shake n Bake' and notes that down. He shouts "Got it!" as he continues running past.
"In position 1, Orsis is operating a sleek racer, Rolling Thunder!" Parts of the crowd cheer as each racer is named.
"In Lane 2, let's give it up for Nyizin on Smooth-As-Snot! It's a sleek racer, and as many of you know, Nyizin lost her companion in the last race, and means to win this one for the lizard! Perhaps at any cost...."
"Look at the guns on Lane 3, folks! It is the pretty-bot Velocity driving their craft, the Glass Cannon! Not 1, not 2, but 3 weapons are visible on that one!"
"In Lane 4, another heavily weaponed junker, the ... um.... Shake N Bake? Well anyway, we ALL have heard of her pilot, the upstart, Laboni!" Some cheers, some jeers, and a fair amount of laughter is heard.
"And finally, needing no introduction, but as he pays my bills he'll get one anyway.... RATROD!" The crowd goes wild. "Of course, Ratrod is flying his customary Blue Steel, and today has some punishment to dish out. Who thinks that Shake N Bake is about to be Shooked and Cooked, eh?" This time the entire crowd bursts into laughter and applause.
"And the count down has started! Place your bets, folks! And remember, no shooting from the stands!"
And their off! Out of the gate, there is an immediate flurry of activity as each racer starts with a jolt!
PHASE 1 - Weapons!: Anyone who wants to shoot a weapon picks the weapon a target and resolves it. The weapons fire uses the gunner's ranged attack, modified by the racer's weapon modifier. Your junkracer has three weapons, so three people can fire a weapon. Remember to identify your target with your roll.
PHASE 2 - Race!: Ever racer makes a piloting check. The target DC is 16. Your crew can make a single pilot check.
Success! Move your racers FULL SPEED.
Fail by fewer than 10: Drat! You bounce and only go half speed.
Fail by 10+: SHIT! You crash the racer and it doesn't move at all this turn.
ROUND 1 - Phase 1
Starfinders: 0'
Ratrod (custom): 0'
Nyizin (well-armed): 0'
Orsis (sleek): 0'
Velocity (spherical): 0'
Starfinders: [TBD]
Ratrod (custom): Targets Shake N Bake KAC
Nyizin (well-armed): shoots at Orsis EAC .
Orsis (sleek): Doesn't attack.
Velocity (spherical): Targets Ratrod KAC