GEARHEADS (What you need to know)

Important Terms
The Network: A giant fucking MMO in Hell. This is where the Gearheads "live" so to speak.
Battery Life: How long a Gearhead can go without recharging. The less mechanical they are, the longer their battery life usually. This is not always the case because upgrades and implants are a thing.
Levels: How long a Gearhead spent in the Network before leaving. A Level is a span of 365 days during which a Gearhead loses his or her humanity and begins to transform into something much more mechanical and much less fleshy.

Livewires


Livewires are still pretty close to human due to the fact that they only stay in the Network for 5 Levels. Some Gearheads actually refer to Livewires as "Noobs" because of how little time they spend in the Network.

* Can fuse weapons and armors onto their body (Note: Using these weapons and armor pieces tends to drain some amount of Battery.)
* Receive a 10 extra skill points at the start due to their ability to learn things quickly.
* Add shock damage to all of their melee attacks (determined by d10 roll).
* [CAUTION] HIGH VOLTAGE: Livewires have a chance to deal a small amount of shock damage any time an enemy physically touches them. Not the enemy's weapon - the enemy.

Average Battery Life: The standard Livewire with 1 weapon mod and 1 armor mod has a battery life of 6-7 days because of how little battery they actually use. An active Livewire, one who uses their weapons and armor on a daily basis, has a battery life closer to 2-3 days before they start to slow down.

Plugs


Plugs are the "medics" of the Network. They can only progress up to Level 10 before they become a static piece of the Network. They heal much faster than any other Gearhead and are capable of creating more intense electrical charges. They are essentially walking batteries.


* Plugs recharge much, much faster than the average Gearhead.
* Plugs "spark" when injured. Critical hits may in fact cause some serious shock damage to the opponent.
* Unfortunately, this is the state right before the Gearhead loses natural sight and gain a HUD. A Plug's eyes are weaker than most. They get -10 on perception checks.
* GENERATOR: Power failure isn't a thing when you have a walking generator. Count on your digital equipment running smoothly with a Plug around. This also means, by extension, that battery does not drain from other Gearheads when a Plug is around.

Average Battery Life: Plugs have an obnoxiously long battery life due to the fact that they themselves are batteries. A Plug can actually last for an entire year before they need to recharge.

Trackers


Trackers are what happens when a Plug hits Level 11. At this point, the Gearhead is monitoring his or her stats, has an inventory that is essentially a fucking 3-D printer with limited memory space, and has their own built in Jammer Pack.

A Tracker is a problem. If you have a stealth mode, the Tracker will never know about it because they can see you anyway. Permanently "Jamming" all forms of stealth effects within a med-range radius of themselves, it is highly unlikely that you will get the jump on a Tracker. They now utilize a HUD and have some pretty basic...well...gaming abstractions. Trackers can view their stats at any time. They can read everyone's stats all of the time. Once a Gearhead becomes a Tracker they become truly dangerous.

* For one, the Tracker's inventory upgrades automatically. They get a "carry weight" instead of an actual item limit. They need only open their inventory and remove/equip the item they want.
* They also loot corpses in this way.
* The carry weight for mechanical items such as computers, scanners, iPods and/or whatever the fuck is zero.
* Trackers can read the stats of other PCs and NPCs, as well as determine whether or not they are friendly.
* Trackers receive 20 extra skill points to dick around with because they are now considered official "Players" on the Network.
* JAMMIN': Stealth mode doesn't work within a med-range radius of a Tracker.

Average Battery Life: Jamming takes up a lot of battery. Most Trackers can only go for roughly 20-24 hours without charging.

Pirates
   
   
  The best (Or most irritating depending on your perspective) of the worst. The pirates are without a doubt, the beings most often banned by the admins. This isn't because the admins are assholes, though that isn't to say they aren't. This is because the pirates have a habit of deconstructing their opponents into loot, which is generally frowned upon. That said, usually the highest scorers in the network are pirates. Nothing like Making your fortune off the work of others, and damn if they aren't good at it.
   
   * Splicer: Pirates have the ability to seamlessly incorporate any type of mechanical apparatus into themselves, which makes them, hands down, the most varied type of Gearhead in terms of appearance and capability. This said, they don't really progress very much on base stats. then again, they don't usually need to with the sorts of 'splices' that they create.

   * Torrenting: Unlike other Gearheads, Pirates are capable of 'torrenting' information and abilities from those around them. Unlike their Splices however, these torrented resources are not a permanent addition to their systems. They can only have so many torrents going at one time before they start to lag, which makes them irate, and also vulnerable.

   * Zerg rushing: Pirates are able to create minions using their resources. They tend to choose either a massive number of weaker minions, or one extremely powerful one. These minions, in the case of most energy light, weapon heavy pirates, tend to act as mobile charge stations, or, in the opposite case, giant mobile weapons.

   
   Average Battery Life: Anywhere from 5 hours to 6 months.
 
   
   

Anonymous
   
   
  The Anonymous, or Anons, as they are known in normal conversation, are on the brink of complete digitization. Quite apart from making them less problematic, this makes them far more dangerous than the bulk of their fellow Gearheads. The anons tend to be fluid, malleable beings, able to incorporate and infiltrate nearly any mechanical system, and, in some cases, even organic ones. They carry a very advanced form of the infection that created them, allowing them nearly unrestricted input and output compatibility, as well as some quite scary capabilities combat-wise.
   
   * The Anons may not have some of the more obvious bells and whistles that the other types posess, but what they do have in spades is adaption, which in ,many ways makes them more dangerous than any of their kin.
   
   Average Battery Life: It varies.
   
   
   
   

The Admins
   
   
     The admins are the gods, and the ghosts, in the machine. By-in-large, as beings free of the concepts of life, death, morality, and compassion, they are not to be trifled with. Admins are code made manifest, and by Satan are they manifest.
   
   * The Admins have a fairly large variety of abilities, but chief among them are the ability to ban people, thus removing them from being, and their ability to simply assert control over any system they come into contact with. Unfortunately for those on their bad side(s), this includes the Mechanisations of other Gearheads.
   
   Average Battery Life: Admins aren't real concerned with battery life. Let's just go with that.
   
   
   
   

Moderators


One step below Admins, the Moderators, or Mods in casual conversation, are not something you want to come across in battle. The Mods, unlike the Admins before them, where once made of flesh and bone. Now they are made of synthetic flesh wrapped around what should be bone but is now an unidentified metal substance. Mods do not have organic eyes, but rather "replacements" for the bulky and unsightly helmet HUDs of the Trackers and Pirates.

* Mods are able to freely change their "skin". This can result in them being very difficult to identify.
* Flag: Mods can summon an Admin to deal with an...issue. It better be a damn good reason though because the Admins will have none of your shit.
* Follow: Mods have the unique ability of being able to "follow" a person's activity. They receive random updates in the form of audio, video, and text as to where that person is and what they're doing. They can follow a potentially unlimited amount of people...but for every person they follow the updates not only become more frequent...but more ridiculous.

Average Battery Life: Mods can last up to about 11 hours without charge.