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[Happerry]

Turn 5 : Revision Phase

S&M Passion- Sensory System Refinement
So, we will admit that we made a mistake there. Mostly in blindly trusting our more experienced designers to understand what is and is not reasonably manageable. Indeed, while the attached Idoloid pilot added by the others turned out perfectly(which isn't saying much considering she was little more than a physically imposing commander), the entirety of the actual systems that the long-time members had devised were far too much, and they were what the entirety of the program revolved around. Needless to say, we need to invest more time into getting this project to work, and make more reasonable decisions for it.

The first and most important change, the sensor-spoofing equipment that was interfering with the functionality of the sensors has been stripped out and made unnecessary for actually using the systems as a whole. While we won't be throwing these away, we'll be keeping them in 'cold-storage' until we can fix them separately at a later date. As something of a bonus this will also mean that, until the time where the fully functional spoofers can be installed at least, the S&M Passion stages will have moderately more room for transporting troops.

The next improvement could potentially be something of a downgrade, but we have chosen to decrease the sensory systems range from covering the entire theatre, to stretching out to 'sniper ranges'. While the range is still significant, it's not to the degree that was originally implied(or perhaps intended). Instead it will make the amount of information each Passion unit must process far more manageable and let it focus more, but will also mean more of them are needed to cover the same area.

Unfortunately, in order to maximize our ability to get this working in time, we were forced to put direct transmission capabilities on the chopping block as well. This means that our Hackers will be forced to choose between extra micromanaging by having to send sensor information directly to the commanders it is relevant for, or take the risk of leaving the largely defenseless S&M Passion units themselves near the front lines instead.

3 + 3 + 0 = 6 : Above average (Normal)

After the less then acceptable efforts of the original project team, the revision of the Sensory & Manipulation Model decides to toss most of the advanced features and utility of the original specs and focus on the core application of the program. This focus on tactical ranged sensors is far simpler then strategic range sensors combined with strategic ranged sensor interference, and the simplified equipment far more easily can be fit on the Stage's 'floor space'. While still a first generation sensor system the S&M Model should be completely sufficient for detecting the known enemy stealth assets (IE, the tunnelers and the camo-raptor-mantis units) that have caused the Stagehands so much trouble.

This decrease of floor space needed also allows the S&M 'Passion' Model to once more transport troops, though with only around a third of the efficiency/capacity of a normal mobile assault stage. In testing it quickly becomes standard to permanently station an Officer.exe upon the S&M Model to make up for the fact that the long ranged com systems in the installed Idoloid pilot have been rededicated to sensor interface and control systems. While more cumbersome then just having the flying sensor array report the sensor intake itself, this relay system is still far superior then forcing the hacker to be the single communication link between all sensor systems and local command assets, as testing has shown that such a task is effectively a full time job, and doesn't leave the hacker any time to provide overall command and control or to use their battlechips effectively.

Technically this simplification of effects would allow the S&M 'Passion' Model to be produced in greater numbers, but the lack of direct combat ability leaves hackers seeing little reason to produce this dedicated support unit in higher numbers at this time, as only one or three of the sensor stages are needed per active combat hotpoint.

It is now the Deployment Phase of Turn 5. During this phase you must decide which of your hackers will be leading your attacks (you currently have two attacks), and decide what they will use their memory space to bring with them in terms of chips and champions (You currently have 8 memory).

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Hackers
Jorg Jörgenson
A thoughtful and methodical hacker that prioritizes force preservation and defense area control, the Bass Line plays for long term advantages as he shapes the battlefield into one incremental advantage after another until it grants him victory. He prefers melee designs over long ranged combat, and his preference for force preservation biases him away from the more fragile viruses whatever their range. He also has a deft hand with territory effecting battlechips that allow him to get more out of them then others would, and substantial experience with using defensive and supportive function battlechips.

Aria
Aria is a relatively new hacker, but Aria's loyalty to Sonata's Stagehands is undoubted. They have a talent with long ranged bombardment by both battlechip and virus, as well as other brute force destruction applications, which is substantial enough to result in their appointment as one of Sonata's Stagehands' field commanders. This plays well with their similar, if lesser, talent with fixed defenses. They have been noticed to have problems with giving the enemy the initiative and not noticing when said foe is doing something sneaky. While less notable, their relative inexperience as a hacker can sometimes cause them trouble in contested data spheres verses a more experienced foe.

Viri
Minion.exe
These roughly humanoid programs are neither very sophisticated (intelligence and coding wise) or very strong, but they are mass producible and smart enough to obey orders without continual direct supervision. Which isn't always something you can take for granted with generic digital constructs, as a lot of them are dumber then rocks. They're not coded with anything more powerful then a basic energy pulse pistol, but they can still defeat the average civilian whom thinks too much of themselves. Just avoid putting them up against Data Police Agents. (Simple)

SwordyMinion.exe
The normal baseline minion, adapted to use a sword instead of a pistol. They're no smarter and only a little tougher then a normal minion, but the sword is a stronger weapon then the pistol so it's somewhat more deadly. As long as it can get into melee range that is, as it no longer has the pistol. It will try to stab any enemy projectiles that come to close to it, allowing greater survivability rates then would otherwise be expected as long as the projectiles being shot at it are the kind you can stab.
(Simple)

Defender.exe
An enlarged minion with a continually active siren mounted on its helm and bearing a giant tower shield with more flashing lights and what looks like an impressively large gun array integrated into said shield's surface, this virus is a natural first target for anyone attacking a group that it is in. Which is the point. Not actually armed any more well then a normal minion, but with noticeably integrated code-buffering and a shield formed from active denial firewall lattice coding, the Defender is well equipped to be a remarkably sturdy, for its rating, distraction. It's attention getting features have now been upgraded with an off switch, and Officers have some light scripting telling them when to turn said attention getting features on or off. For example, when sneaking, keep them off. This makes them much simpler to transport.
(Simple)

Templar.exe
An alternate version of the Defender that's been given a sword instead of a charge pistol and upgraded with a moderate-low level skill library for sword and shield fighting. They still have the reinforced structure, shield, and siren of the Defender, and also like the Defender the Templar's siren can be turned on and off. Sadly, it does not have a flaming shield and sword.
(Simple)

Officer.exe
Based on the generally available in the Undernet Minion programs, Officer.exe constructs aren't much stronger then their lesser kin, still only coded with a basic energy pulse pistol, though officers also come with basic melee coding. But the big difference between and Officer and a Minion is that Officers are coded with noticeably more advanced bit-brains and have a basic tactical library integrated in their knowledge banks, allowing them to lead teams of Minions on operations without needing constant hand holding.

Since the start of the war, they've been revised with slightly enlarged tactical libraries and an improved ability to both identify enemy officers and commanders and figure out which officers on their own side are doing the best, and therefor should be listened to more. (Complicated)

Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ
A combination of crude and sophisticated coding, the Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ is attuned to the Music Element, and uses said element to both release regular (close ranged) bursts of healing for friendly units and as the energy type her attacks count as. They are armed with an immensely large syringe they use (crudely) as a spear and as a launching point for slightly weaker then normal pistol shot projectiles. They are also coded to act as officers, and are about equal to existing officers in command skill but make the decisions faster, giving them an advantage in tempo and reaction speed. Defensively they are neither tougher nor weaker then a normal officer, baring elemental interactions.

As Stagehand Hackers currently find their currently minimal healing ability more useful then their command ability, they have not yet made officers obsolete.
(Complicated)

Lesser Lasard.Mon
The Lesser Lasard.Mon is a cyborg theropod with join locking legs and a counterweight tail to provide a stable firing position for the heavy repeating charge gun that makes up the Lasard's upper jaw. This cannon fires shots somewhat stronger then a potential charged shot from the charge pistols basic minions use, and can also charge up itself to fire a very powerful splash damage shot of ball lightning through use of the Thunder Element, though this drains the Lasard's power such that it needs a few minutes to recharge. The Lasard can also unleash a melee ranged lightning shockwave, though this is far weaker and still drains the Lasard, but its only other decent melee option is hitting things with its tail. The Lasard 'sees' with two strips of electrically sensitive materials mounted on its flanks, and can therefor blind itself when it uses its shockwave. Despite the Lasard's use of electricity, the unit as a whole is not elementally attuned. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage v2
A large flying stage with two of the speaker arrays replaced with missile launchers and handrails around the edges to keep passengers from falling off. It's piloted by a minion who's been fused directly with the singer's podium, but still controls the stage with hand controls. Like the missile battlechip, if the Stage's missiles are deflected they'll often lock onto a friendly unit, usually the stage that fired them. The Mobile Assault Stage is capable of carrying a little over twenty minions at a time, or thirty if you pack them on really tightly, enough to interfere with their ability to do anything until they get off the stage. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage - Sensory & Manipulation Model - Passion
A redesign of the Mobile Assault Stage that replaces the majority of the deck space with sensory equipment to allow for sniper ranged sensor scans, removes the missile launchers, and replaces the pilot with a Passion model Idoloid which has exceedingly enlarged hands and a somewhat enlarged upper abdomen to go with its overall size increase, and replaces said pilot's long ranged communication gear with dedicated sensor control coding. While this leaves the 'Passion' Model of the Mobile Assault Stage completely useless in direct combat it can now provide valuable informational support and still has the 'floor space' to carry around seven minions on what open floor space it retains. Given the lack of long ranged com gear, normally there's an Officer.exe permanently stationed on the S&M Model to allow for relaying the sensor intake to the command network.
(Complex -> Effectively Exceedingly Complex)

Marksman.exe
A buggy mess of a minion variant with a non-functional charged shot sniper rifle with no normal shot mode and who's charged shot only works one in three times, is intensely fragile, and has a non-working advanced ballistic calculator and target value calculator. All this would be bad enough even if the virus didn't only shoot at targets they're directly ordered to shoot without having the Officers programmed to order them to shoot. (Exceedingly Complex)

Autonomous Digital Intelligence
BlueFiend.mon
An upside down floating pyramid surrounded by an oozelike substance that is manipulated into varied body parts and coverings, born of an experiment into self adapting programs. BlueFiend uses this material as armor, tools, and weapons alike, as well as a large degree of personal strength. It tends to prefer melee combat, but is not limited to it, and prefers to communicate in sign language and/or charades. Interestingly, BlueFiend has once or twice shown the ability to entirely liquefy itself, but the rarity of when and hesitance with which it employs this ability suggests some sort of major limiting factor to it. (Memory 4)

Battle Chips
Recovery 10
This tactical battle chip is designed to mend damaged and corrupted code, healing the individual it is applied to by a minor amount. (Simple, Memory 1)

Atk+10
This tactical battle chip pre-allocates resources to empower the next program used, improving the targets ability to deal damage for a short while. (Simple, Memory 1)

MinionCall A
This strategic battle chip creates temporary replicas of the commonly known ‘Minion.exe’ program, causing a short term burst of reinforcements in the targeted zone. (Simple, Memory 1)

Stunbolt
A tactical battle chip that releases a bolt of electricity into the target, which then paralyzes the target until the excess electricity dissipates. This chip is elementally attuned to the element of Thunder. (Simple, Memory 1)

Missile I
The Missile I is a strategic battlechip that effectively fires a decently powerful cruise missile at a chosen target. The missile plays an annoying MeTube speech the entire flight and will not explode before it hits something that's not the ground or a wall, resulting in it almost always hitting the target when it doesn't loose control over itself by bouncing off the ground nosecone over tail, which tends to make it go flying off into the void. Has an annoying issue where, if deflected, it will often lock onto a friendly target instead of going back after the original target. (Complicated, Memory 1)

DramaticSpotlight
This chip combines an environmental influence effect with a protective barrier, it... well, look, it lets you summon a dramatic spotlight to spotlight your avatar or an ADI and includes enough defensive shielding to let you do a (short) dramatic speech or pithy comment without anyone being able to do anything about it. The defenses fail if you move or attack however, and only last a short moment, but it's quite good for making a memorable introduction. (Simple, Memory 0)

InvokeSoundtrack
A battlechip that invokes a soundtrack, using advanced environmental sensors to analyze the zone that the Hacker or the Hacker's Proxies are in and play appropriate music for where they are and what the current events are. Some would swear it has a better detection rate for hidden surprises then anything else in Sonata's Arsenal, but it also has a deeply encoded priority for dramatic timing, and therefor the dramatic chords only begin to play when the surprise is about to be sprung on you anyway. (Simple, Memory 0)

[Failbird105]

Deployment Plan: Repeated Verse

Jorg 'Bass Line' Jorgenson
Deployment Zone: Viral Jungle
Chip Folder,
- Stunbolt [1]
- Stunbolt [1]
- Recovery 10 [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- BlueFiend.mon [4]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]

Aria
Deployment Zone: Mountain of Public Relations
Chip Folder,
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]

Repeated Verse (1): Failbird

In essence: Aria's tactics are plain and simple full force destruction, more missile. We will probably want to start our work on unfucking the Marksmen either next turn or the turn after though, depending on whether we'd rather do that or further enhance missile spam first.

Meanwhile, Jorg is getting the stunbolt as, in effect, a method to secure a bit more advantage in the almost inevitable confrontation against Vivi.
Also, changed the music to some more situational ones

[m1895]

Repeated Verse (2): Failbird, m1895

[Happerry]

Jorg 'Bass Line' Jorgenson
Deployment Zone: Viral Jungle
Chip Folder,
- Stunbolt [1]
- Stunbolt [1]
- Recovery 10 [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- BlueFiend.mon [4]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]

See the Battle Report in the core thread.

Aria
Deployment Zone: Mountain of Public Relations
Chip Folder,
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- Missile I [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- MinionCall A [1]
- DramaticSpotlight [ 0 ]
- InvokeSoundtrack [ 0 ]

With the foothills claimed, and preliminary logistical bases constructed, the time comes for the Stagehands to push farther up the Mountain of Public Relations. As were the foothills, the Mountain is not safe traveling territory for invaders. Organized clans of PR Agents under dictating Marketing Director programs are bombarded with missiles, the sky darkening swarms of origami butterflies are broken by the Lesser Lazards even when they fold together to become a titan-moth that sprinkles poison from its wings and fires lasers from its eyes, and the limb stealing shadow-advertisements are illuminated to the sensors of the S&M Passion and thusly destroyed.

Of course, such monsters are only the first wave of foes to be found in this place, and as the climb goes higher the resistance stiffens. One titan moth becomes two, becomes three, becomes four as they transform and merge into paper-mache gigazord attack robots that crush invading Minions beneath their dozen feet, calcified hive shrugging off missile strikes and Lasard blasts alike. Attempts to bring the gigazord monsters down with chip invoked missile strikes fail as they slip quidwise from reality, rematerializing after the missiles have crashed uselessly against the mountain side.

The advertisement monster shadows have grown as well, higher up here on the mountain, with neon lights flickering around their edges both internal or external the only warning as they swallow up entire platoons and unleash mix and match monstrosities upon the responding forces. Some have teamed together, unleashing constructed wheels of flailing legs and hands large enough to pull the Gigazord Moth Fusions apart or kick entire companies of Assault Stages into the cliffsides until they either fall off the mountain or wander to where the higher level Marketing Directors have covered entire passes with sticky red tap. Any such units caught within these Red Tape webs find the Directors unleashing predatory Web Crawlers upon them, crawling nimbly across the tape as they ward off the moth-swarms with machine guns that chatter hungrily through fanged barrels.

In the end, it's the S&M Passion models advanced sensors and the airlift capacity of the normal Assault Stages that allows progress to be made. While strategic ranged mapping sensors would be superior, 'sniper' ranged sensors are still enough to map out the immediate pathways and dangers upon said pathways, while the Assault Stages allow for scout and construction teams to be airlifted around native hardpoints too difficult to dislodge with current generation forces. The hold the Stagehands has upon this segment of the Mountain of Public Relations is hardly a stranglehold however, with hardpoints and relays fortified into crevices and shallow cave-mouths rather then taking advantage of the flat spaces, the micro-valleys and usable ridges, this portion of the mountain has. But at least with those areas still dominated by the native codelife, any enemy attack will have to face those monsters as well as Stagehand forces.

Aria wants to warn the central planning team that, despite her current progress, she does not expect to be able to push further up the mountain without one of (and preferably more then one), superior sensor systems for navigating the confusing mountain trails, units adapted for superior mountain type movement capacity, and superior access to firepower (She notes in specific that the Lesser Lasards, while highly useful, had issues with being bulky dinosaurs on goat-trails, and the Missile I battlechips had an unfortunate tendency to run into the mountain walls and explode, for there was little land for them to bounce off of).

+1 Control in the Mountain of Public Relations for the Sonata's Stagehands.

[Doomblade187]

I suggest we revise the missile battlechip and make either some gestalt intelligence or a new firepower format  - perhaps a minion.exe boasting a miniature lazard cannon? Alternatively, more assault stages are always good.

[Failbird105]

Viri Design: Plain Jane.exe
We, Sonata's Stagehands, have found that we are lacking in one critical area. Our minions, the very base unit of our forces, just can't match up to our enemies. Thus, we've decided to change this. They think they've beat our minions with what, a slightly bigger gun? We'll show them. The Plain Jane is not merely an upgrade to the Minion format, it's a complete overhaul.

The Plain Jane has a taller model(compared to Minions at least), face concealed by a helmet(to save effort on modeling a face) and a feminine but clearly robotic body. By default the Janes 'armor plates'; such as the helmet, their 'gauntlets', the 'chestplate', and their 'boots', will all be the classic untextured pink and black grid. This is because we'll actually be allowing each Hacker to choose their own base color for their Janes, which will be used for those parts when they are deployed by said Hacker.

Enough about their aesthetics though. In terms of what makes the Plain Jane so much of an upgrade, aside from being taller and substantially better looking, is well... everything. They are moderately tougher, have somewhat stronger pistols, and a more efficient purpose built bitbrain with upgraded combat AI and ballistic calculations to match, even if they aren't really capable leaders.

What we want to be sure to do however, is keep this base model accessible and easy to modify. And for one simple reason. We want it to be as easy as possible to update our various variant models of Minion into Janes in the future.

[Failbird105]

Plain Jane.exe (1): Failbird

[m1895]

Plain Jane.exe (2): Failbird, m1895

[Doomblade187]

While I do support the plane Jane, I wanted to go ahead and write up a secondary idea:

Arpeggio Soundsystem - a smaller, faster flying unit than the Assault Stage, the Arpeggio mounts two major armaments. Firstly, the cannon from the Greater Lazard is mounted center in the airframe for quickly available firepower. Secondly, the top of the craft sports several Missile Chip launchers. The airframe is closed top with a transparent bubble, and the craft istelf is shaped like several round speakers melded together. The aircraft is piloted by an integrated pilot, similar to the Assailt Stage, but the pilot minion has recieved upgraded programming to take advantage of the improved speed and maneuverability.

Plain Jane.exe (3): Failbird, m1895, Doomblade

[Happerry]

Turn 6 : Design Phase

Viri Design: Plain Jane.exe
We, Sonata's Stagehands, have found that we are lacking in one critical area. Our minions, the very base unit of our forces, just can't match up to our enemies. Thus, we've decided to change this. They think they've beat our minions with what, a slightly bigger gun? We'll show them. The Plain Jane is not merely an upgrade to the Minion format, it's a complete overhaul.

The Plain Jane has a taller model(compared to Minions at least), face concealed by a helmet(to save effort on modeling a face) and a feminine but clearly robotic body. By default the Janes 'armor plates'; such as the helmet, their 'gauntlets', the 'chestplate', and their 'boots', will all be the classic untextured pink and black grid. This is because we'll actually be allowing each Hacker to choose their own base color for their Janes, which will be used for those parts when they are deployed by said Hacker.

Enough about their aesthetics though. In terms of what makes the Plain Jane so much of an upgrade, aside from being taller and substantially better looking, is well... everything. They are moderately tougher, have somewhat stronger pistols, and a more efficient purpose built bitbrain with upgraded combat AI and ballistic calculations to match, even if they aren't really capable leaders.

What we want to be sure to do however, is keep this base model accessible and easy to modify. And for one simple reason. We want it to be as easy as possible to update our various variant models of Minion into Janes in the future.

4 + 1 - 0 = 5 : Average (Normal)

The Plain Jane is a revolution in basic minion competence. However, they are not a revolution in basic minion effectiveness. This is mostly because the Plain Jane is still stuck using basic minion grade equipment, the type of which you have essentially not upgraded since the beginning of this war. However as requested the fundamental foundations of the Plain Jane are greatly improved over the basic minion with dedicated programmer attention given to refining the basic functionality and effect of their internal systems, causing them to be just enough tougher, stronger, and more accurate then a basic minion as to be noticeable even if attempts to upgrade their charge pistols have had negligible effects.

Despite these improvements, the main advantage the Plain Jane has over the basic minion is not their somewhat increased baseline statistics but instead their improved ability to support modifications and alternate equipment loadouts with less need of adaptational programming efforts due to a superior ability for their chassis to support new equipment and a bitbrain pre-designed for modular informational uploads.

However their simply was not enough time to transfer all existing Minion.exe variants to the Plain Jane template as of this programming drive, due to both the variety of newly properly formatted informational modules needed and due to a time-consuming flamewar over what the proper names for the new variants would be and so that transfer will needed a dedicated project.

Lastly, while measures were taken to allow for each Hacker to easily mark the Jane's the Hacker in question's own colors, their is no available data on which colors are associated with which hacker, and if this feature is to be used it would be requested that information be made available during the next phase's revisionary programming project.

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Hackers
Jorg Jörgenson
A thoughtful and methodical hacker that prioritizes force preservation and defense area control, the Bass Line plays for long term advantages as he shapes the battlefield into one incremental advantage after another until it grants him victory. He prefers melee designs over long ranged combat, and his preference for force preservation biases him away from the more fragile viruses whatever their range. He also has a deft hand with territory effecting battlechips that allow him to get more out of them then others would, and substantial experience with using defensive and supportive function battlechips.

Aria
Aria is a relatively new hacker, but Aria's loyalty to Sonata's Stagehands is undoubted. They have a talent with long ranged bombardment by both battlechip and virus, as well as other brute force destruction applications, which is substantial enough to result in their appointment as one of Sonata's Stagehands' field commanders. This plays well with their similar, if lesser, talent with fixed defenses. They have been noticed to have problems with giving the enemy the initiative and not noticing when said foe is doing something sneaky. While less notable, their relative inexperience as a hacker can sometimes cause them trouble in contested data spheres verses a more experienced foe.

Viri
Minion.exe
These roughly humanoid programs are neither very sophisticated (intelligence and coding wise) or very strong, but they are mass producible and smart enough to obey orders without continual direct supervision. Which isn't always something you can take for granted with generic digital constructs, as a lot of them are dumber then rocks. They're not coded with anything more powerful then a basic energy pulse pistol, but they can still defeat the average civilian whom thinks too much of themselves. Just avoid putting them up against Data Police Agents. (Simple - Obsolete)

Plain Jane.exe
A Plain Jane is a roughly humanoid program based on, but improved from, the Minion.exe standardized cannon fodder in use by most serious internet factions in one format or another. Physically they are taller and more slender then the standardized minion body, as well as being vaguely feminine, with a face shrouding helmet and relatively generic armor units. However the most important differences inherent in the Plain Jane are in their foundational structure, which is pre-designed for versatility and integration efficiency with currently non-functional or non-developed upgrade projects and alternate equipment loadouts, allowing them to be more easily adapted into new variants. The improved foundations also increase their functionality over an upgrade'd Minion.exe's values, if not as much as a dedicated upgrade to those areas would result in. Like the basic Minion.exe, the standardized base template of the Plain Jane.exe is armed with a basic energy pulse pistol. (Simple)

SwordyMinion.exe
The normal baseline minion, adapted to use a sword instead of a pistol. They're no smarter and only a little tougher then a normal minion, but the sword is a stronger weapon then the pistol so it's somewhat more deadly. As long as it can get into melee range that is, as it no longer has the pistol. It will try to stab any enemy projectiles that come to close to it, allowing greater survivability rates then would otherwise be expected as long as the projectiles being shot at it are the kind you can stab.
(Simple)

Defender.exe
An enlarged minion with a continually active siren mounted on its helm and bearing a giant tower shield with more flashing lights and what looks like an impressively large gun array integrated into said shield's surface, this virus is a natural first target for anyone attacking a group that it is in. Which is the point. Not actually armed any more well then a normal minion, but with noticeably integrated code-buffering and a shield formed from active denial firewall lattice coding, the Defender is well equipped to be a remarkably sturdy, for its rating, distraction. It's attention getting features have now been upgraded with an off switch, and Officers have some light scripting telling them when to turn said attention getting features on or off. For example, when sneaking, keep them off. This makes them much simpler to transport.
(Simple)

Templar.exe
An alternate version of the Defender that's been given a sword instead of a charge pistol and upgraded with a moderate-low level skill library for sword and shield fighting. They still have the reinforced structure, shield, and siren of the Defender, and also like the Defender the Templar's siren can be turned on and off. Sadly, it does not have a flaming shield and sword.
(Simple)

Officer.exe
Based on the generally available in the Undernet Minion programs, Officer.exe constructs aren't much stronger then their lesser kin, still only coded with a basic energy pulse pistol, though officers also come with basic melee coding. But the big difference between and Officer and a Minion is that Officers are coded with noticeably more advanced bit-brains and have a basic tactical library integrated in their knowledge banks, allowing them to lead teams of Minions on operations without needing constant hand holding.

Since the start of the war, they've been revised with slightly enlarged tactical libraries and an improved ability to both identify enemy officers and commanders and figure out which officers on their own side are doing the best, and therefor should be listened to more. (Complicated)

Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ
A combination of crude and sophisticated coding, the Idoloid MDL 01 - Sakura.ISQ is attuned to the Music Element, and uses said element to both release regular (close ranged) bursts of healing for friendly units and as the energy type her attacks count as. They are armed with an immensely large syringe they use (crudely) as a spear and as a launching point for slightly weaker then normal pistol shot projectiles. They are also coded to act as officers, and are about equal to existing officers in command skill but make the decisions faster, giving them an advantage in tempo and reaction speed. Defensively they are neither tougher nor weaker then a normal officer, baring elemental interactions.

As Stagehand Hackers currently find their currently minimal healing ability more useful then their command ability, they have not yet made officers obsolete.
(Complicated)

Lesser Lasard.Mon
The Lesser Lasard.Mon is a cyborg theropod with join locking legs and a counterweight tail to provide a stable firing position for the heavy repeating charge gun that makes up the Lasard's upper jaw. This cannon fires shots somewhat stronger then a potential charged shot from the charge pistols basic minions use, and can also charge up itself to fire a very powerful splash damage shot of ball lightning through use of the Thunder Element, though this drains the Lasard's power such that it needs a few minutes to recharge. The Lasard can also unleash a melee ranged lightning shockwave, though this is far weaker and still drains the Lasard, but its only other decent melee option is hitting things with its tail. The Lasard 'sees' with two strips of electrically sensitive materials mounted on its flanks, and can therefor blind itself when it uses its shockwave. Despite the Lasard's use of electricity, the unit as a whole is not elementally attuned. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage v2
A large flying stage with two of the speaker arrays replaced with missile launchers and handrails around the edges to keep passengers from falling off. It's piloted by a minion who's been fused directly with the singer's podium, but still controls the stage with hand controls. Like the missile battlechip, if the Stage's missiles are deflected they'll often lock onto a friendly unit, usually the stage that fired them. The Mobile Assault Stage is capable of carrying a little over twenty minions at a time, or thirty if you pack them on really tightly, enough to interfere with their ability to do anything until they get off the stage. (Complex)

Mobile Assault Stage - Sensory & Manipulation Model - Passion
A redesign of the Mobile Assault Stage that replaces the majority of the deck space with sensory equipment to allow for sniper ranged sensor scans, removes the missile launchers, and replaces the pilot with a Passion model Idoloid which has exceedingly enlarged hands and a somewhat enlarged upper abdomen to go with its overall size increase, and replaces said pilot's long ranged communication gear with dedicated sensor control coding. While this leaves the 'Passion' Model of the Mobile Assault Stage completely useless in direct combat it can now provide valuable informational support and still has the 'floor space' to carry around seven minions on what open floor space it retains. Given the lack of long ranged com gear, normally there's an Officer.exe permanently stationed on the S&M Model to allow for relaying the sensor intake to the command network.
(Complex -> Effectively Exceedingly Complex)

Marksman.exe
A buggy mess of a minion variant with a non-functional charged shot sniper rifle with no normal shot mode and who's charged shot only works one in three times, is intensely fragile, and has a non-working advanced ballistic calculator and target value calculator. All this would be bad enough even if the virus didn't only shoot at targets they're directly ordered to shoot without having the Officers programmed to order them to shoot. (Exceedingly Complex)

Autonomous Digital Intelligence
BlueFiend.mon
An upside down floating pyramid surrounded by an oozelike substance that is manipulated into varied body parts and coverings, born of an experiment into self adapting programs. BlueFiend uses this material as armor, tools, and weapons alike, as well as a large degree of personal strength. It tends to prefer melee combat, but is not limited to it, and prefers to communicate in sign language and/or charades. Interestingly, BlueFiend has once or twice shown the ability to entirely liquefy itself, but the rarity of when and hesitance with which it employs this ability suggests some sort of major limiting factor to it. (Memory 4)

Battle Chips
Recovery 10
This tactical battle chip is designed to mend damaged and corrupted code, healing the individual it is applied to by a minor amount. (Simple, Memory 1)

Atk+10
This tactical battle chip pre-allocates resources to empower the next program used, improving the targets ability to deal damage for a short while. (Simple, Memory 1)

MinionCall A
This strategic battle chip creates temporary replicas of the commonly known ‘Minion.exe’ program, causing a short term burst of reinforcements in the targeted zone. (Simple, Memory 1)

Stunbolt
A tactical battle chip that releases a bolt of electricity into the target, which then paralyzes the target until the excess electricity dissipates. This chip is elementally attuned to the element of Thunder. (Simple, Memory 1)

Missile I
The Missile I is a strategic battlechip that effectively fires a decently powerful cruise missile at a chosen target. The missile plays an annoying MeTube speech the entire flight and will not explode before it hits something that's not the ground or a wall, resulting in it almost always hitting the target when it doesn't loose control over itself by bouncing off the ground nosecone over tail, which tends to make it go flying off into the void. Has an annoying issue where, if deflected, it will often lock onto a friendly target instead of going back after the original target. (Complicated, Memory 1)

DramaticSpotlight
This chip combines an environmental influence effect with a protective barrier, it... well, look, it lets you summon a dramatic spotlight to spotlight your avatar or an ADI and includes enough defensive shielding to let you do a (short) dramatic speech or pithy comment without anyone being able to do anything about it. The defenses fail if you move or attack however, and only last a short moment, but it's quite good for making a memorable introduction. (Simple, Memory 0)

InvokeSoundtrack
A battlechip that invokes a soundtrack, using advanced environmental sensors to analyze the zone that the Hacker or the Hacker's Proxies are in and play appropriate music for where they are and what the current events are. Some would swear it has a better detection rate for hidden surprises then anything else in Sonata's Arsenal, but it also has a deeply encoded priority for dramatic timing, and therefor the dramatic chords only begin to play when the surprise is about to be sprung on you anyway. (Simple, Memory 0)

[Failbird105]

Revision: Sniper Jane.exe
So before anything else, it should be mentioned that while yes the title of this project does refer to the Jane unit, the focus is actually on the weapon. The Marksman, thus far, has been our biggest blunder. Between the non-functional gun and the multiple failures at providing the AI to properly use it, it wound up all but useless in the end. But now with the Plain Janes being made and being designed to enable easy creation of variants it felt like our best shot to fix this major mistake.

In essence, the Sniper Jane project is us taking the time to fix and refine the many, many problems with the pulse rifle and its coding, then equip the weapon and AI modules to a Jane base instead of a Minion one. Which actually required less steps than expected, as some of the missing or bugged components of the pulse rifle and Marksmen, such as improved ballistic calculations and greater overall intelligence, were already features of the Jane.

This means that our primary efforts went into fixing the Packet Containment Protocol such that the bullets no longer risked simply popping mid-flight, and adding a 'snap-shot' mode to the weapon. The snap-shot mode allows the rifle to fire half-power shots with almost no charge time, but with dramatically reduced accuracy and a brief cooldown period instead. While snap-shot is all but useless for taking on targets at even moderate range, it is very good for self-defense purposes for when a foe gets too close.

But of course, what would we be if we didn't dedicate efforts to aesthetics as well? Not Sonata's Stagehands, that's for sure. The Sniper Jane model wears a sizable dark grey jacket with a hood that can be pulled over the head, a (purely aesthetic) headset, and an undershirt and short pleated skirt both in the Hackers color.


Hacker Color suggestions:
Jorg- Navy Blue
Aria- Aria(a sort of 'light, icy white')

[dgr11897]

Revision: Lessest Lazard
Replacing the standard pistol, this new weapon is based on the Lesser Lazard's gun, and the Charge shot of our somewhat dysfunctional Marksman.exe. This new Pulse weapon looks like a dragon's head stuck on the user's arm, with small horns which gather the energy required for each shot.

It is able to rapidly fire weak, uncharged shots, with a somewhat higher rate of fire but roughly equivalent damage per shot to the original pulse pistol. The weapon can also fire off larger charged pulse blasts for fighting harder targets. To enable this we have miniaturized a lot of the code from the lesser lazard, while stripping out aiming and cognition components.

The trickiest part of this weapon is that it is intended to replace the Pistol for our Plain janes and Officers. This necessitates some minor updates to their ballistics calculations, and a few behavior alterations to let them make use of the improved fire rate in massed fire situations. With the higher rate of fire and ability to shoot charged shots it should allow our forces to tangle with more severe threats.

[Failbird105]

Revision: Mega-Pulser
Intended to replace the standard pistol, this new weapon is a sort of 'Pulse SMG' in a way. Its model is that of a basic sort of arm cannon with a Hacker dependent color pallet, that the units hand inserts into and grabs onto the grip on the inside of the weapon. This makes it almost impossible to disarm a unit wielding the Mega-Pulser without literally de-arming them, though we don't really expect disarming to be a threat we face.

Using coding from the Lesser Lazards cannon as an example and integrating it into the base of our Pulse Pistol, it is able to rapidly fire uncharged Pulse Pistol shots as fast as the wielder can mash the trigger. Meanwhile the weapon can alternatively charge up to fire off significantly larger, stronger pulse blasts for fighting harder targets. While not as strong as something like the Marksman was intended to be, it should be enough to destroy a basic minion in a single hit at full charge.

The trickiest part of this weapon is that it is intended to replace the Pistol for our Plain Janes, Officers and Defenders. This necessitates a slightly updated ballistic calculations suite for the three in order to support the new fire rate and charged shots, and a few behavior alterations to let them make use of the improved fire rate in massed fire situations. With the higher rate of fire and ability to shoot charged shots it should allow our forces to take on both weak swarms and larger individuals with equally greater effectiveness.

[dgr11897]

Mega-Pulser(1): DGR

[Failbird105]

Mega-Pulser(2): DGR, Failbird