John Anderson PLLC's page

Indeed! Thank you for all the hard work!

When John starts to walk towards Orianna's group, Robert steers him aside, prompting a quick flurry of comms messages. 'He's right' John reflected in awe 'They might have been watching them.'

Uh, about these bugs we're wearing... do they transmit, or record?

"I've not had" John consults the menu 'Avian before." unpractised with the ways of deceit he begins to unload his entire invented convoluted backstory onto the poor waitress. "I am a statistician who worked offworld until very recently. I..." the story continues in intricately researched if improbable detail. "...she left me my second cousin called me to..." John cuts off as he catches the look on John's face. "Anyway, now I'm here."

John nodded at Oriana, impressed at her perfidy. "An excellent solution. I can look for physical threats, and Robert can observe for less mundane issues." He turned to Robert "We should work on our false identities, and construct a conversation for them to have. Perhaps we could discuss a local sports team and their recent status changes."

Ooh. Two teams is a good idea. Make the people with bad social skills do it...

Action 3:
"My skills at deceit are poor. While I am happy to wear a camera, I will need someone else to take the lead on our investigation. I will attempt to stay ready in case of attack." John patted his 'briefcase'.

Action 2:
"I will need to see the waivers first, and we'll also need you to indemnify us in the case that we are forced to do damage to property or people in the cause of defence of self or property." a slight pause "I am downloading the laws on deputisation and the rights and duties thereof as we speak."

"We are not un-dangerous ourself." John agreed. "Perhaps you have heard of us?"

John slowly walked back to his companions, distracted by a flurry of electronic communications.

Action 2
"It seems possible" John agreed. "While the evidence is circumstantial, it is compelling."

Action 3
"More evidence of kidnapping, over recruitment." John suggested.

Action 1:
"The event seems suspicious. Those who repeatedly attacked us may have gone after your colleague - or simply recruited her." John hefted his 'briefcase' "Make haste."

Action 2:
"This looks like an attack. Surely if she was packing a bag she would have taken it. Robert, Zadie: please look for clues on the computer. Orianna, Kamiya: please question those in nearby offices. Muhali: I will help you report this to the police. Please assist me in heading to the shuttle bay while we do so. The attackers may still be leaving, and I need you to identify the target." under pressure and ship raised, John had forgotten planets lacked natural chokepoints to long distance travel.

Action 2:
"I for one am keen to extend my five minutes. I found it invigorating, if tiring." John announces into the sullen silence left after Robert's dismissal.

Action 3:
Realising his companions had everything well in hand, John idly perused the fragments on the desk. John's only got Intimidation. Not helping is helping. I could get Alice to do it, but I think Fabian frowns on that ;P

Action 2
John snapped to attention. "It is a good thing I am here. I'll immediately start to investigate the process to acquire permits, and file the appropriate paperwork. Hopefully our Pathfinder membership will work to expedite the process. There is a risk that because the previous person to undertake this research was a loose cannon we might find ourselves waiting a significant time, but there is really no other option; it is not as if we can join a poaching expedition!"

Action 2:
"That is terrible." John sympathised. "It is obvious you feel a deep connection to the planet your people were born on. Is it fading as each new generation is born in the ship?"

Action 3
"So much water..." John breathed reverently. "Millions - billions - of kilograms." He breathed deeply "The air recycling seems to be malfunctioning though."

Action 2
"Why did you leave?" John asked bluntly. "You seem fond of your planet."

Action 1
"According to the encyclopedia and service manuals I managed to retrieve, Android consciousness can be reset to a blank state. This frees the soul. It is both death, and the creation of life. It is possible for an Android to trigger this state, but also for the state to be triggered via external command, or even through system error." John looked pensively at his computer "I believe that my previous consciousness was a valuable asset, equipped to act as a white collar employee. I doubt the corporation that owned it sought to wipe its experience, so I suspect the error in the stasis pod triggered a consciousness reboot."
"Still - the concept haunted me. One reason I became certified, incorporated my own company, then declared my body salvage and took ownership of it. Only John Anderson PLLC has the right to reboot the body in which my consciousness resides."
note for historians; Androids now have the right not to be owned or rebooted by others.

"I have never had a mother." John announced out loud. "I would be prepared to experiment with the relationship ruth. My name is John Anderson, PLLC. My agents are Alice, Barb and Cass."

John's sheet should be good. His shopping is done - just the armour, though I'll buy the rounds up to 20 again if that is okay.

As everyone else had done an overarching presentation, John decided to do the same. The room filled black, pinpoints of stars out at the edges. A glint of light in the centre of the room indicated something floated in the void. John waved, and a wireframe model of glowing green lines formed around the remnants of a ship.

"This was where my consciousness arose. The luxury liner the Red Queen. The Red Queen had been tumbling for at least a century and a half without power when I awoke."

The scene was replaced with a dark hallway, lit only by the fading glow of a stasis pod indicator: "Maximum safe stasis period exceeded. Stasis aborted." One wall of the room it sits in is simply gone, and the back void of space can be seen through the ruin of structural struts.

"Fortunately the generator that powered the pod was still operational, being linked to a solar array on the outside of the ship. While the amount of power available was minimal, the ambient light was enough to allow me to charge my comms unit. That unit contained Alice." In the darkness, wireframe surrounds everything, and handy green text illuminates various features.

"Alice had an IT troubleshooting program - Barb. Though Barb had never been designed for the level of issues I found, she was able to help me cobble together enough basics to allow me to survive. I was fortunate that the suit I was in stasis in had warming pads, and that I did not need to breathe. I was further fortunate that the galley had survived." John waved again, and the room was replaced with a stainless steel room, covered in debris from what looked to be an explosion. "Space proved to be an excellent preservative, and several of the food varieties survived in a form that was non poisonous."

John waved again and the room morphed into a control room, with dead crew frozen in various final positions around the room. "I attempted to salvage the ship's AI; this was where I recruited Cass. Between her, Barb and myself we managed to steer the ship's drift towards Absalom. Over the years we journeyed I had shelter, food, water and even companionship of a sort. My reading indicated that my true danger likely lay in insanity. Ironically, it was exactly the situation in which a stasis pod would have been useful."

John waved again and the room became a holo-suite. "The holo suite was my salvation. I managed to get enough power to run simulations and training for many hours each day. This was my education, my entertainment, and my socialisation."

John waved a final time and the the scene became a shuttle heading towards Absalom. "When we reached Absalom space I arranged for the ship to be scrapped in exchange for a trip into the station. While I still hold affection for the ship, it was infeasible to repair her to operational status."

Sweet! yes, that one!

I always dreamed about flying an Anaconda

"We should utilise this cargo space. If we're going to be going to Castrovel, perhaps we can do a cargo run at the same time. We might as well get paid for our time." John suggested. "If nothing else we could buy something cheap here, and sell something it for more there ourselves. Kamiya; is there anything that fits that criteria?"

Ah, the glamorous life of the tramp freighter crew

Golemforged plate 2, level 3, 1610cr. 750 left. Still shopping

Can I keep the brown force field that I was using against the bbeg? Or is it part of the suit?

Action 2
John sniffed "The ship design seems to prioritise unnecessary luxuries. I do like the fact it has a VR suite though. I suggest we run through more combat simulations before we need to fight again for real."

Action 3
"Alice." John asked "I believe that was the ship. Can you please interface and exchange credentials."

Action 1:
John kept his opinion to himself; that being the ambassador was not telling the strict truth.

profession: Lawyer up!: 1d20 + 7 + 1 ⇒ (9) + 7 + 1 = 17
Carefully John went through their agreement with a fine toothed comb. "In the event of needing to take this to arbitration, our confidentiality agreement is likely to be held void." he pointed out.

Action 3:
"Yes - I think we should get supplies before we talk to the Ambassador. There's a good chance we're going to expedite our departure afterwards." John looked at his display "I need armour. Big, heavy, hard armour. My chassis is tougher than most of you, but I was still too close to destruction too many times."

per core, you have to pay for each charge. Under that reasoning I can understand the cost - basically "you'll never have to buy charges again."
Worth it for John once he gets power armour, though, for sure. Who wants to change a battery in power armour!

Yes please. Exchange second skin for ceremonial officer's plate... actually, I'd be prepared to keep the second skin as "leisure wear".
-2275 credits

Yeah, backup generator would be good. Armour is the big priority though.
-250 for the second skin.
2680 remaining.
Ceremonial Officer's Plate is 2275.
I'd like the backup generator, but at 2100 I can't afford it.

Item Cost
Light Reaction Cannon 250
Second skin (+1/+2, +5) 250
Tier 2 computer 250
Rounds x20 90
Computer: Add personality 25
Computer: minaturisation x2 50
Tool Kit, Professional (+4 prof) +control 22
Tool Kit, Computers + control 22
Took Kit, Engineering + control 22
Comm Unit+control 7.7
Hygiene Kit 3
Professional clothes (+1 prof) 5
Starsone Compass 3
Industrial Backpack 25
Artillery Laser 425
Subdermal Implant 0
Glammered fusion for cannon 120
Credits 525.3
SUM 2095

Hmmm - started looking at equipment and realised there are two issues. 1st is cost, of course, but equally important is what Tier we can buy. I have a feeling we're limited to tier 3, with a chance of tier 4 or tier 5.
I also have strong ideas on how to modify the ship. I'd like to set it up so it is easier for everyone, and ideally more exciting. Broad Arc weapons can shoot into multiple arcs (at a penalty) so might let more people have the fun of gunning - or at least make it an alternative to their normal role (and roll).
Replacing the port and starboard weapons with broad arc, and the front with a longer range gun means that when shooting front or rear up to four people could take pot shots. If the front was left as broad arc as well then in two of four arcs we could fire four weapons, and in the other two we could fire three.
That would make maneuverability less important.
I'd like to switch the computer out from +2/+2 to +1/+1/+1/+1 - technically less good as we can't prioritise who gets the big bonus, but means everyone can get a flat bonus. It's save us points. Ideally I'd like to start incorporating some of John's artificial personalities with the ship.
I'd suggest countermeasures to stop us getting hacked, but if the adventure wants it to happen it sort of needs to ;)
Personally I'd be interested in the backup generator for John (as in, installed in John. He needs to buy better armour. His weapons are pretty good, but he needs something melee - perhaps a knife. Interested in getting a standard datajack so he has better access to email.

On the agenda after the ambassador; Let's... go... shopping! And get a medical check up.

John smiled back at Zadie "Exotic!" he agreed "I'd very much like to see Rain. Do you think there will be any?"
The android sighed in relief as someone else failed to pick up a name. "Yes. I'm going to need a background on this Zan. And the University. And Catrovel. And Xenoarcheology."

New topic
"Chiskisk. I note that there is no health insurance attached to our Starfinder contracts. Are there suppliers who can issue us a discount? We went through a lot of medical supplies on out expedition, and we all need to have a thorough investigation to ensure we are not... pregnant." John searched for the word but it didn't feel quite right "Carrying embryonic young."

"Somewhat unexpectedly we have inherited a starship. I'll need to transfer all the papers and ensure everything is in order. Can the Starfinders help with this? I imagine I'll need a conveyancer. I am also interested in the Starfinder position on salvaging ships. How long post-combat would we need to wait before we can legitimately declare a ship as 'salvage'?"

"Huh. Also lowers the value of any unedited footage we might have - 99% of what we saw has already been sold. We should definitely consider the vid rights to anything we do in the future when negotiating." John notes.

Action 2:
"If it is any comfort they may have been dead - or dying - anyway." John assured the crew. "Any atmosphere would have vented by this point, so they'd be down to their suit atmos', slowly waiting to die while the counter ticked towards zero."

Action 3:
"I'll look up the law while we walk, if you can keep lookout." John reassured Zadie, though in truth his mind was elsewhere. John's early life had been lived with no exposure to people - only sims and vids. Finding himself a celebrity, seeing himself make the news - however briefly - somehow reassured him.
Reaching into a pocket he pulled his remaining stock of business cards, and desperately handed them out to his newfound fans.

John shifted uneasily "In the future I'd caution against allowing a pause in combat. Legally it might indicate we were no longer in fear of our lives, turning self-defence into murder." He coughed "Obviously in this case we do still fear for our lives."

"I suppose. We'll need to keep a careful scan on them to make sure they're not gently rotating towards us, though." John surreptitiously cast an eye at the camera drone "I still feel we are at threat of a lethal surprise from the enemy ship. If they haven't surrendered very, very soon I think we should remove their ability to fight - permanently.'

"Are you sure you want to let them drift?" John looked up, then concentrated again on his console "If they manage to fire those torpedos we could still be in trouble."

John concentrated on the enemy. "Tort-Ace: take us past them close, on our port again. Cap'n Grandma: man the Port gun. Zadie: man the gyrolaser, swing it round to the port - hopefully we'll get a minute before it burns out. I'll keep them lined up on the Turret. Let's make this happen."
if we lose init, then we can't really do any fancy manuevers, can we? Do we just declare, or actually move?
Gyrolaser is at -2. Should be two computer bonuses left this round, right?
guns: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (13) + 7 = 20 damage: 3d6 ⇒ (3, 6, 4) = 13

If we can't flyby...
"Captain - warm up the flak cannon. If they can, they'd be mad not to hit us with some torpedoes." John called, his mind on the enemy.

attack!: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (20) + 7 = 27
dam: 3d6 ⇒ (1, 1, 1) = 3
Assuming Orianna is on the gyrolaser if we're facing them

John grinned as Tortace lined the enemy ship up for him. The crosshairs seemed to naturally float over the centre of mass as the other ship rotated over its axis. John dialled up the magnification - and it seemed the easiest thing in the world to find the black, bubbled spot from his previous hit and hit the same point again. The hull vaporised for a second, and as the particulate matter cleared John realised he could now see straight through the ship. 'Wasted most of my shot on the space behind' John grumbled to himself 'I hope they had something important behind that.'

"I promise not to push it unless our lives are on the line." John said with grim humour.

I just looked up Gyro lasers
"Robert - any chance you can work out why the gimbal on the front gyrolaser is stuck? Damn thing's supposed to have a 270 degree arc of fire." John complained.
[ooc]so...[/ooc
Gyro laser is "Broad Arc"
Flak Cannon is "Point (+8)"
Broad Arc
A weapon with this special property can fire in an arc adjacent to the one in which it was installed with a –2 penalty. A broad arc weapon can fire at only one target at a time.
Point
A weapon with this special property is always short range and can’t be fired against targets that are outside the first range increment. If a tracking weapon would hit a ship in an arc that contains a weapon with the point special property, the gunner of the targeted starships can attempt an immediate gunnery check with the point weapon against the incoming tracking projectile using the bonus listed in parentheses in the weapon’s Special entry (instead of her usual bonus to gunnery checks). The DC for this gunnery check is equal to 10 + the tracking weapon’s speed. If the attack hits, the tracking weapon is destroyed before it can damage the ship. A point weapon can be used to attempt only one such free gunnery check each round, but this usage potentially allows a point weapon to be fired twice in a single round.

"I thought that one was going to be the only one they could take." John grumbles. "Kamiya - can you set up one of those slow, close flyovers again? Maybe not SO close though, I think we might have scraped our paint off on their hull!" He paused "If not - can you keep them on our tail? We could just leave the Flak Cannon on autofire - that'll mess up them and their torpedos!"
my vote is stay in their aft! Lacking that, keep them in our aft and 5 (or less) hexes away.

I looked it up. My reading is we can choose one arc to fire from.
"Aye aye captain grandma!" John acknowledged the order and trained the turret on their target once more. At this range the computer assistance was largely irrelevant, and John concentrated on keeping the beam on a single point. The already damaged shields overloaded and failed under the constant barrage, and the hull beneath blackened and bubbled. As they zipped past the enemy ship John realised he was close enough to see coolant venting from damaged pipes in the area.

attack+computer: 1d20 + 7 + 2 ⇒ (15) + 7 + 2 = 24 damage: 3d6 ⇒ (5, 5, 5) = 15

"Great idea!" John called to Kamiya.
can we choose which arcs we fire from?

RE the action flowchart.
Look; honestly I think firing guns is the thing easiest to automate. In this ship we're going to fire every gun in range every time, right? The AC range where it makes more sense to only take a single shot is pretty small. We could assign 3 other people (not Kamiya) arcs to fire from, and assume they take that action if there is something in range.
The real choices with firing are whether to use computer or not, and that should really be made during helm phase.
That would let us "pause" the turn once, during the helm phase. Everyone then declares their action and Fabian runs the ship (and rolls for firing) until the next helm phase.

Brainstorming;
Would a "what to do" in the turn recap help?
Maybe broken down by phases, in a way that can be reposted along with the map?

Normal weapons have range increments. The Flak Cannon is a special weapon that does not.
I think the combats are important, and I think that the system means everyone has a chance to do something. I don't like that the list of actions is so short, which does sort of constrain choices.
I suspect that in a ship with more turrets we'd have more gunners. Maybe something to look for in the future.
I think we need to be more aware of who is getting the Captain's +4, and the Computer's +2. I suspect that is a lot of the strategy for this sort of thing.
The big issue seems to be that until we actually move we don't know the actions. Am I right that we're currently doing movement last - ie "this is where you are right now - shoot or whatever" and "Decide what you want the pilot to try for next round."
"Range helps them." announced John "Let them closer, or stick them in another arc."
If John can full attack, he will. Otherwise he'll just use the turret.
He is normally +7. If he can use the computers he'll get +2. If he can is inspired he'll get the +4. Not sure if I should roll before people say what they're going to do.

trouble is that our aft weapon ONLY goes 5 hexes. We'd have to get them to move to one side, or the front. Alternatively we let them catch up a bit, which lets us use our 3d4 flak cannon each round.
John can get +2 to a roll from the computers. I suggest Gunner and Pilot makes sense for this roll.
He can also get the +4 from CG.
He could then roll twice at -4 to hit.

"Captain! Take out that Torpedo!" John called, though his eyes never moved from the targeting camera trained on the Cairncarver.
Carefully he eased the trigger down - just as the conduit near his head sputtered sparks in his face and distracted him.
Shooting a torp is a free action
BOOM!+ computer: 1d20 + 7 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 7 + 2 = 11

I'm taking a +2 from the computer. There is one more. CG can retcon if problematic. Figure with a Turret he'll get a shot anyway.
attack: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22 dam: 3d6 ⇒ (1, 4, 5) = 10
"Stay on target... Stay on target..." John muttered to himself as the Cairncarver bobbed and weaved through his targeting reticule. Finally the computer's vector tracking locked on, the reticule went red and the instant the other ship crossed through the beam's vector it discharged. "Boom!" John said happily as the shields of the Cairncarver collapsed, and the oversized maw on the front of the ship blackened.
Critical Threshold of 8, right? If it hits an unshielded spot, I think that's a critical.