Airdrops and the war for the cargo

Five times a day a cargo AV drops a container over Night City. The whole city hears about it 10 minutes ahead, and only one crew can take the cargo: a gang, a nomad clan or a criminal family. Most often it lands in Dogtown, and it gets fought over.

#When

• Five times a day, Moscow time: at 12:30, 15:30, 18:30, 21:30 and 00:30. At 21:30 a big cargo comes down.
• On your phone the “Events” app shows what's going on now, the schedule, the last drops and the rules.
• One cargo at a time. While one drop is on, there's no other.
• Rivals needed. A scheduled drop happens only while there are at least two crews in the city, each with at least two people in the game.
• The administration can drop a cargo itself too, at an event for example.

#Where

• 16 spots. 10 in Dogtown and one each in Northside, Rancho Coronado, the Glen, by West Wind Estate in Pacifica, in North Oak and by Rocky Ridge in the Badlands.
• Dogtown most often: a cargo lands there three times as often as at any other spot. It never lands at the same spot twice in a row or within 300 m of the last one.

#Ten minutes ahead

• The crews get “A cargo drop in 10 min: ... Fight for it!”, and a text with the spot comes from the “Radio intercept” number: “Whoever gets there first takes it”.
• The police on duty get an informant's tip and a call in the 911 list: “Gangs fight over a dropped cargo”.
• Everyone else gets “They'll shoot there, keep away”, and Network 54 News puts out a breaking line.
• The map shows the cargo's marker, and the phone a route to it.

#The container

• A red container with red smoke, black for a big cargo. Once down, it stays locked for a minute: “Locked · opens in ...”.
• Inside: 120 to 180 weapon materials, 8,000 to 15,000 €$ and up to three things: medicine, vests, ammo, grenades, a weapon mod, a cyberdeck.
• A big cargo holds 250 to 350 materials and 20,000 to 30,000 €$, and among the things there may be unmarked guns, the same as from a workshop's bench.
• 20 minutes. If nobody opens the cargo in that time, its owners take it away.

#The war zone

• 70 m round the container. The zone is hot while the cargo is down and for 2 more minutes after it's taken. Whoever walks in sees “The war zone for the cargo: they shoot here without warning”. There's no green zone there.
• Knocked out in the zone, you come to in the hospital after a minute, not 3, and with no hospital bill.
• A newcomer is told straight: “You're new: you can't open the cargo, but you can get hurt. Better leave”.

#How to open it

• One person opens it at a time. While one holds E, nobody else can: “Someone else is opening the cargo”.
• The opening stops at any damage (“You were hurt: the opening stopped”), if you let go of E, step away from the container, are knocked out, get into a car, end up in cuffs or carried, or go away from the keyboard.
• The time stays with the crew. What your people have held is kept, and the next of them goes on from there. But while none of yours is at the container, it slowly melts away.
• Who took the cargo is told to every crew, to the people within a kilometre and to Network 54 News.

#Who can open it

• Gangs, nomad clans and criminal families. The police, the medics and the other state services on duty may not open the cargo.
• Not a new character: 3 hours of play come first. And not a newcomer to the crew: you need 12 hours in it.
• A crew takes a cargo once in 4 hours at most and no more than 3 times a day.
• One account's characters take a cargo once in 4 hours at most.

#The police

• A tip 10 minutes ahead. An informant says where the gangs will fight over the cargo, and the 911 call gives a route.
• Weapon materials are illegal: the police seize them in a search. See The workshop.