Operations and Tactical Overview

One of the core fundamentals in cybercore is the break down and time slicing of the game.

Many role playing games run for months if not years to complete a single module. Cybercore is far more fast paced and broken up into 4 pillars of play.

There a 4 core pillars in Cybercore to entertain your players.

1. SitRep.
2. Mission.
3. Op.
4. Encounter.

SitRep - Situation Report

The Sitrep sets the scene for the upcoming Op or mission. It gives the players a chance to roleplay, introduce there avatar, train for the upcoming mission, purchase, repair and upgrade their equipment, and organize a ride if required. This can occur anywhere, a space port (plantside), A space station (upside) or onboard a large deep space vehicle.

Generally they will be in touch with their Core here if they have one.

Time Wise A Sit Rep should take no longer than an hour.

Missions

A Mission is a series of three Ops and thus should take about 3 game sessions to complete. It's entirely possible to fail a mission if it takes longer due to the 9 RTCs that will take place over the three Ops.

It will start with a SitRep to set the scene, a possible Encounter, and a short Op to finish the first session. This will get the Players in the door so to speak. The following Session will complete a vital mid mission Op with the final session covering the Mission Objective Op and Extraction Goal.

Operation (Ops)

A short sortie that takes 2.5 to 4 hours to resolve. If this is the start of a new Session or Mission the Op will be shorter and follow on from the SitRep and a possible Encounter. At the End of the Op, the players should find themselves back on base (BoB), or having secured the Mission foothold, Or dead, yea, umm they could be dead by then too.

Encounters

An encounter is something that may or may not happen on the way to an Op or mission. These are generally a brief skirmish or discovery to get the players on there toes.

It should tke no more than 30 minutes to resolve.

RTC's Real Time Clock.

Also know as a Real Time ClusterF^#k.

When on an Op, the real time clock is ticking, most Ops have a event (it could be anything from an Environmental Failure to an Alien swarm incursion) that occur on the hour, every hour, regardless of the progress made by the players. This is there to keep the players focused on the game and moving forward. Some of these events will be highlighted in the SitRep, the players will know whats at stake, others will be surprises requiring the players to think, albeit quickly, on their feet.

If the game is slowing up, the players AI, their Core Operation Oversight Operative (CO3) or even glancing out the porthole where they clock the incoming astroid of certain doom should remind them of whats a stake.

Mission Recovery Structure

Each Op consists of 2-3 Encounters. Between encounters, players take a Stim Break. Between Ops, players take a Lockdown.

Stim Break (~5 min patch job after an encounter):

• HITS recovery capped at 1/4 max (1/3 with Medic)
• Max 1 consumable use
• Engineer can repair 1 DR on 1 armor
• Medic can suppress 1 Wound penalty (R6+)
• No Wound removal, no Quality repair

Lockdown (6-8 hours between Ops):

• HITS recovery capped at 1/2 max
• 2 HITS restored automatically from rest
• Max 4 consumable uses
• Medic can restore 3 additional HITS + remove 1 Wound (R8+)
• Engineer can repair 6 DR across squad + attempt Quality repair

R&R; full reset: all HITS, DR, Wounds, conditions, consumables, temporary attribute reductions.

This structure creates deliberate attrition across the mission arc. By the final Op, squads will be running low on consumables, DR will be depleted, and every Hit matters. See Resting for full recovery rules.

Failure

It will happen, so be prepared for it. Cybercore has more ways to fail than your std RPG. Sure you can run out of HITS and die, that's one way, and a pretty standard affair. You can also die to environmental effects, again it happens in most RPG's though space is a pretty inhospitable place, most avatars can't survive in it's cold hard cruel and uncaring vacuum.

Here are a few things that makes Cybercore a little more dangerous.

1. You can run out of Creds. Thats right, staying Upside costs Creds, that oxygen you are breathing isn't free. Nether is your room and board. If you run out of Creds on a Corporation controlled station you become an Indent, your Space fairing days are over.
2. But then theres the RTC's (Real Time Clocks). These will often Kill one or more avatars. Corps and Syndicates do not mess around, agent placement is expensive, getting agents on and off planet especially so. They do not place their agents into situations where lawyers and a few letters would take care of the problem. There is always a danger to valuable corporation personal or assets, and those are generally more valuable than the avatars sent in to solve the problem. So if multiple insertions are cost effective, competing agents are often dispatched to ensure the commodity is secured. To encourage efficiency and haste in achieving the mission objective it's not unheard of for only a single extraction vehicle to be dispatched.
3. At some point a Players going to get left behind. In the event that they survive what ever situation they have been left in; if the player wants to carry on with that avatar, the GM will need to go Off-Core and arrange a pick up mission. If the players have there own Ship or could afford The Bounce, they would be valuable enough to the Core that they would only have been left behind if things went seriously sideways.
4. Essentially once you cannot afford your O-Bill or you are stuck Planetside, the game is over for that Avatar. They will live out there life on the Planet, and fade into antiquity.