On the topic of the metal blocking radio signals I seem to have conflated the spotty mesh access and with the mines at some point, as I can't find the info I thought I'd read in Acrimony. I might say they just grab a more sensitive receiver from the ship and point the booster in the direction of the mines or something. I think that works better than undoing what had already made for some interesting play time and challenges. I'll try to use Kinesics more, since I think I only called for one roll of that, and I think I'm overusing Perceive in situations other checks may be more appropriate. Thanks for locating the Jamming rules for me. Mykaen, thanks for the idea with the bonus on checks with the miners, I might do that. I had considered adding a Spare to the scratch space, but since I seem to have made up the signal interference I might go with the simpler idea. Edit: And in regards to the other sections of character creation I suppose I'll try to adapt 1e stuff or just make something up as a temporary rule for now. Do you know where that spreadsheet may have been located so I can go looking for it? Thanks for the suggestions.

Ooh, that's useful. Thanks for passing that along, it's cool seeing how all the features come together to determine costs.

We start right where we left off, with the team on the ship, having just been given some objectives from Eludere. Mission Objectives: • Acquire gear from scratch space. o Consider sneaking weapons off of ship if needed. • Identify source of apparent Exsurgent infection. o Remove/quarantine source if possible. • Secondary: o Investigate any possible links with Fa Jing’s ‘Lion’ installation. o Investigate possible link between Triads and apparent Exsurgent infection.  If no link is determined, attempt to obtain aid from Mariposa Chen.  If no link is determined, attempt to locate and deliver payment for prior aid. • New payment may be organised for both missions, if needed. • Confront Josepf Bves and his Confessors—this situation is extremely volatile and should be handled with care. After picking up some mining grade radio receivers from their undercover mining ship the team split up, Chi and Sváfa going after the scratch space, while Amal had a good look at the security around the space port and used their experience with security and that little look around to come up with a few options. Ultimately they decided against trying to go around the asteroid, since while Amal playing rocket spider would have been fun the same sensors that detect micrometeors might have detected a flying robot armed with guns. Instead Amal passed along information regarding the types of sensors and scanners typically used at this sort of spaceport (being familiar with Comet Mining and Security), and Njál went to work hacking the scanners, taking his time to do so. Things got a bit hairy when the system almost detected his intrusion, but it was passed off as a glitch thanks to some impressive digital obfuscation. Scanners hacked Amal had their smart clothes form a shell-tight suit holding the guns to their undercarriage, with some decorations like robes and flowing fabric to further conceal the weapons. Constable Yu checked the scanners results, saw things were fine, and waved them through since Chi wasn’t there. While all this hacking was going on the two biomorphs made it to the scratch space, gathered the gear and gun from it, and headed into town to meet up with the others. They decided to take the disassembler hive sans case, as it would be easier to hide. While in transit the group decided to investigate the triad angle first, and used Firewall’s contact details to message Mariposa Chen, who quickly organised a meeting. In Chen’s office they found a triad boss who very much wanted her payment, but was convinced they were telling the truth about the first Chi going missing, and taking the payment with them. She admitted to strange things going on, and noted her underground psychosurgery business had dealt with a lot of odd trauma, but wasn’t willing to let the gang talk to her pyschosurgeons, or their patients. From the discussion the group realised she saw Bves as a bit of a rival for controlling the mines, and she was unlikely to move against him without significant cause. Not wanting to push their luck the team decided not to ask for more help, instead agreeing to look for the first payment, and organise a replacement if they couldn’t find the first. Finally deciding to head to the mines, Njál noticed he was being hacked. Although not able to effectively fight off the hacker, he managed to cut his connection to town and spend a few minutes rebooting and re-securing his connections. Once back online he used his encryption app to warn the others what had happened, and while Chi checked their own devices, they found nothing. Amal, Chi, and Sváfa were all hacked. Chi looks around trying to find anyone suspicious, and (crit fail) swears they saw someone looking their way before rounding the corner. Chi wanted to go after them, but the group was already heading to the mines and didn’t entirely believe the person had been suspicious at all (some good rolls got around metagaming, which was good since no-one wanted to go hunting what they all OOC knew was a false lead that only happened after Chi’s player had already been told a hacker could be anywhere on Kongyún). The group entered the mines and did not get lost at all (the first roll got them on Chi’s trail, even without accounting for the information they’d acquired). The lady warning them not to go any further stumped them for a bit, and Chi, who is apparently a bit of a psychopath, to go along with the psychosurgery and psychology skills, considered killing her to hide the fact the group was going this way. While she’d likely be restored later the group didn’t want to kill someone who may well be innocent and just giving a regular business warning, and so left her there after she started ignoring them. Njál had his Gnat bots flying overwatch as they went through the tunnels, and it was lucky he did, since he was the only one to spot the IED the Confessors had planted. As soon as he warned the others Best, who was watching through their systems, set the explosives off. Chi and Sváfa dove to safety, and only got peppered with debris that bounced off of their armour, while Amal took a few dents. The Gnat bot that spotted it was smashed against the wall of the tunnel, immobile, but with the camera still functioning. While the Confessors moved into position to open fire the group called out and through dumb luck convinced them to hold their fire, partly by yelling out “shamsu heiroah yanaksha” and partly by offering help. A conversation took place under gunpoint. The investigators revealed they’d already passed on what little they knew and there was no point immediately killing them, especially as they were here to help. They said others were coming already. At some point he admitted to having killed the first Chi to arrive on Kongyún, and claims he had been infected. Uncertain as to how, or even if, the situation could still be contained, Bves asked who the group were. A quick tacnet conversation leads the players to decide things are bad enough that memories may be wiped at this point anyway, so they decide to go all in. “Firewall.” “Firewall? You expect me to believe you’re Firewall?” Turns out they can be really persuasive, or at least the dice say they can be. Wanting to at least try to see if they were honest before resulting to truly desperate measures like tossing all the mining explosives they could get at the artifact, Bves explained the history of the artifact, and how he’d had experience fighting the TITANs and their mad creations during the Fall. The group describing how Basilisk hacks worked (in as much as they knew) and several ways to attempt to contain them while still gaining information on them (air gapped cameras, low quality images etc) convinced him giving them a chance was worth a shot. He also went over how he is able to remove the infection if he catches it early enough using psychosurgery. Njál contacted Eludere again and explained what Bves had told them, and she let them make the call on how to deal with the artifact, advising them to contain if possible, and attempt to destroy it if not, or if it seems to be taking steps to escape. On their way to the artifact chamber Njál asked if the hacking attempt he’d fought off had been one of the Confessors. A Kinesics check caught that he was a bit awkward about answering that, and when pressed he admitted Best had hacked all of them, and only Njál had noticed. At the final airlock the group heavily encrypted the Creepybot, and had it swing the damaged Gnat bot into the chamber on a piece of string. It then took a low-quality video from it, and the group viewed it on an ecto. The character who looked at the video did not react to the infection call phrase, and proceeded to describe it to the others. Healthy paranoia right there. The crystal in the middle was barely more than a blob in the recording, and the fog soon formed a wall to block off view of even that. The Gnat had also picked up that the first Chi had left a taggant in there, but per strict programming didn’t try to read it. The group repeated the earlier process and then had the Creepybot write the message on the ground. “Collect a sample, report back to Eludere to decide what to do with it.” Having being told Chi was infected earlier, the group decide this message had to have been post-infection, and was intended as a trap to get them to spread the infection. The group head back to New City to get some rest, and pick up some Nanodetectors to try to ensure no-one else gets infected by the fog, not being entirely sure on it’s role in infecting people. As one player had to leave we wrapped up there, the players having avoided any fights, and the artifact ostensibly contained until more Firewall agents could arrive. Bves would likely be recruited, alongside some of the core Confessors. The rest would likely be treated as associates or allies of Firewall. Fa Jing never learned about the artifact, and Mariposa was finally given her payment. Jade never saw Chi again, and after pining for a while began to move on – one of those four that came through recently had caught her eye. Thus ends our groups first experience with Eclipse Phase. Everyone liked it, and we’re already putting together test characters for a few more forays before EP2 comes out (hopefully that’ll be soon). Despite not getting to any fights Amal’s player seemed to have much more fun this time, probably helped along by being given the opportunity to examine and then smuggle weapons through the security. We didn’t really have any hangups this session, everyone had some ideas on what they could do, and how to do those things. I suppose that means it was quite the effective quick start guide, though I do think it needs those few little extra bits I mentioned earlier, particularly the items descriptions. We still didn’t do much with the pools other than get some bonuses and flip some dice, but hopefully that’ll come with time. A little note on the other playtest stuff and character creation: I think we’re all looking forward to the full game being out, but the current system of skill packages seemed to go down well with everyone. It lets you put together a solid base, and get an idea for how skills should be spread out, and then has room for customisation and editing to make each character unique.