Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: legion <legion@*****.COM.AU>
Subject: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 01:52:01 +1100
a while ago someone mentioned a Shadowrun Military Webpage.

Does anyone have the URL??????


Mik
Message no. 2
From: Adam J <fro@***.AB.CA>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 07:52:09 -0700
At 01:52 24/03/98 +1100, you wrote:

>a while ago someone mentioned a Shadowrun Military Webpage.
>
>Does anyone have the URL??????

There's several of them.. probably more than several, but several that are
fairly good. Take a look through the links section at the SR Archive, and
if you don't find it there, check the list of Shadowrun Webring sites.

-Adam J
-
http://shadowrun.home.ml.org \ TSS Productions \ The Shadowrun Supplemental
ShadowRN Assistant Fearless Leader \ SR Archive Co-Maintainer \
fro@***.ab.ca
Message no. 3
From: Johan Felt <is97jfa@*******.HK-R.SE>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 16:07:55 +0100
Here: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/6866/index.html

Johan

legion wrote:

> a while ago someone mentioned a Shadowrun Military Webpage.
>
> Does anyone have the URL??????
>
> Mik
Message no. 4
From: Rune Fostervoll <runefo@***.UIO.NO>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 18:50:59 GMT
Felt wrote:
>> a while ago someone mentioned a Shadowrun Military Webpage.
>>
>> Does anyone have the URL??????
>Here: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/6866/index.html

Quick review:

After visiting the site, and reading the Featured Material
I have one, instantly obvious, question -
How can SpecOps soldiers be so much better than shadowrunners(1), when so
many shadowrunners are ex-SpecOps(2)?

1: "SpecOps will always be better than any characters, and WILL ALWAYS WIN.",
stated in bold on the splash page.(With a disclaimer, mind. ;).

2: The Feature "Tips for an Ex-Military Character", which is on ex-specops PC's.

As a GM I would plan the operation well, give the specop guys good gear and
skills and I would probably use some privileged info to reflect the fact they
are better at tactics than I, but I would not actively fudge things to make the
players automatically loose. (Although the above situation would probably kill
the runners easily.). Making them Ubermench soldiers with double digit skills and
attributed wouldn't be necessary at all - as good as, or slightly worse, than
combat oriented starting runners would be more than enough.

Reading more closely on the site, it contained interesting outlines on several
special units, both corporate, international and national. I noticed that the
special forces outlined was generally not superior to a good street sam
technically, although that varied some from author to author. There's a few
equipment ideas, most of which was good, but there was a few poor ones I'd not
use if I were me. (full-damage burst-fire sniper rifle, a normal weapon
which was 'totally unavailable' for no discernible reason, and a stealth suit
which was, IMO, poorly designed. Good idea, though, and I'll use a variant.).

Fade
--

ADVICE, n. The smallest current coin.
-Ambrose Bierce
Message no. 5
From: Lehlan Decker <decker@****.FSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 13:59:11 -0500
On Mon, Mar 23, 1998 at 06:50:59PM +0000, Rune Fostervoll wrote:
> Felt wrote:
> >> a while ago someone mentioned a Shadowrun Military Webpage.
> >>
> >> Does anyone have the URL??????
> >Here: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/6866/index.html
>
> Quick review:
>
> After visiting the site, and reading the Featured Material
> I have one, instantly obvious, question -
> How can SpecOps soldiers be so much better than shadowrunners(1), when so
> many shadowrunners are ex-SpecOps(2)?
>
> 1: "SpecOps will always be better than any characters, and WILL ALWAYS
WIN.",
> stated in bold on the splash page.(With a disclaimer, mind. ;).
>
Here's my take on it.
SpecOps contain are ALL specops, and train together constantly day
in and day out.
Runner may contain one or two "former" spec ops, but not the whole
team. Most running groups see each other for runs, but do they
get together in the weeks inbetween and run scenarios? Most likely
not, and that's the difference.
In my world, spec-ops won't always win, (Unless theres blatant
supidity on part of the runners), but they most likely will get
very bloody in the process.
And before somebody mentions it, of course you have LS FRT and SWAT
and corps forces. corp forces are usually less lethal then specops
unless their a special unit (red samurai etc).
FRT and SWAT are on par with an "average" or better runner group.
But then again, they usually don't get milspec toys. :)
this is just my .02 cents, but it seems to work, haven't had
complaints. And my players learned quickly, there are certain groups
you don't get in fights with, unless you want better then even
odds of loosing or coming out even against. (And in that case
stack the deck before you start).
Later all.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Lehlan Decker 644-4534 Systems Development
decker@****.fsu.edu http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~decker
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uh-Oh Toto, it doesn't look like we're gods anymore."
Message no. 6
From: Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 18:48:13 -0600
At 06:50 PM 98-03-23 +0000, you wrote:

>
>1: "SpecOps will always be better than any characters, and WILL ALWAYS
WIN.",
>stated in bold on the splash page.(With a disclaimer, mind. ;).
>
Actually when I was making up the regular division of the Texas Rangers I
gave those that used cyberware all beta and some delta wear. I ruled that
the rangers could produce and implament Delta wear but didn't have the
magic to do cyberzombies. Had one ranger sporting Delta wired 3, Delta Tac
computer 1, Delta Smartlink II, Delta Orientation system, Delta encephalon
4, Delta Cyberears (with spatial recognizer). and Delta Cybereyes (Low
Light, Delta Thermographic, Delta Rangefinder, Delta Flare Comp and
Electronic magnification III). Since this NPC was a Troll I loaded him out
with Bioware as well in this case Muscle Augmentation 4, Enhanced
Articulation, Orthoscin 2, Suprathyroid Gland, Cerebral Booster 2. Relfex
Recorder (Firearms). Truama Damper and Level 9 Damage compensator. Keep in
mind the rangers took a tissue sample to discourage people with theis level
of augmentation from going rogue (unfortunatly the Troll in question
managed to destroy his sample while going rogue, enter the runners).

The above Troll was made in keeping with the regular divisions one riot one
ranger policy. Based in Austin his job was to take out the cyberzombies
that Aztlan sends accross the river to do generally nasty things such as
assasinations and sabotage. His wear was based on the observation that if
you don't kill a cyberzombie before it can get off a shot you're more then
likel dead. What was interesting though is how I decided the encephalon
worked. Since image magnification was digital and not optical I ruled that
he could look at many diferent magnification levels at once (giving him big
picture as well as zoom). This meant that the NPC could observe every
action the characters took in the most minute detial, could track exacly
where his smartlink was pointing on mutliple levels (i.e. over body, over
his head, right between his eyes) and could give accurate ranging
information for all subjects within the sceen. I figured that put his tac
comp level around 11 (then armed him with an Ares Combat Gun and Light Sec
Armor).


A little background. Historically regular rangers were the standing force
(when there was such a thing) with the number of members fixed by the
legislature (usually around 100) and special rangers were appointed by the
governor as needed (the rangers guarding the river in Austin are special
while the guy above is regular). Sam Colts orginal revolver was first
adopted by the rangers who used it on the frontier. It was one of the
first big breaks that Colt got (latter ranger feedback would lead to the
design of the Walker Colt). A large portion of Ares started as Colt Fire
Arms Co hence the rangers access to gear that most goverments would drool
over (well that and that in my game most cyberware manufactured in north
america comes out of the Austin Metroplex).

And that my friend is why most runners will loose to special forces.
Becuase only a goverment has the 20 mil or so to make the really scary
cybersoldiers that are theoretically possible.

SteveD
Stephen Delear
University of Missouri-Columbia
Check out my Photo Message Board at http://www.missouri.edu/~c715591
"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click
the shutter" Ansel Adams
Message no. 7
From: Lehlan Decker <decker@****.FSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 11:17:16 -0500
On Mon, Mar 23, 1998 at 06:48:13PM -0600, Stephen Delear wrote:
> At 06:50 PM 98-03-23 +0000, you wrote:
>
<SNIP Scary cyber guy stat>
>
> And that my friend is why most runners will loose to special forces.
> Becuase only a goverment has the 20 mil or so to make the really scary
> cybersoldiers that are theoretically possible.
>
This is true. Just remember the government goes with the lowest bidder.
Say I have 5 guys at 20 mill a piece. That 100 mill. Now how many
planes,tanks, whatever can I get with that? Yes the government may
have the tech, but IMHO its few and far between. (Because in my mind
loosing a person is abit easier the loosing say a nuclear submarine,
but both are possible).
P.S. If you work for me, and I invest 20 mill in you, there will
be an unremovable cortex bomb somewhere in you (perhaps multiple places).
If they don't get a signal from me everyday at say 4PM, can we say
bye bye. :)
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Lehlan Decker 644-4534 Systems Development
decker@****.fsu.edu http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~decker
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uh-Oh Toto, it doesn't look like we're gods anymore."
Message no. 8
From: Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 19:44:34 -0600
At 11:17 AM 98-03-24 -0500, you wrote:
>On Mon, Mar 23, 1998 at 06:48:13PM -0600, Stephen Delear wrote:
>
>This is true. Just remember the government goes with the lowest bidder.
>Say I have 5 guys at 20 mill a piece. That 100 mill. Now how many
>planes,tanks, whatever can I get with that? Yes the government may
>have the tech, but IMHO its few and far between. (Because in my mind
>loosing a person is abit easier the loosing say a nuclear submarine,
>but both are possible).

Actually you weren't paying much attention. The guy above wasn't military
he was law enforcment. We're talking law enforcement on the one man to
four counties Texas badlands scale. When you normally deal with 10:1 or
worse odds against cybered go gangers rustling cattle for the azzies
accross the boarder then you better have some hellish hardware. Of course
not all rangers are as heavly cybered out of 106, 78 are in some way
magically active (keep in mind we're talking about the small law
enforcement arm not the huge military arm). Sure my cybertroll would drop
most runners on site, what do you think his job is? Keep in mind for most
situations the rangers will only send one man (though you will see more for
major bug hives and the like). If they arn't truelly scary they're dead.

>P.S. If you work for me, and I invest 20 mill in you, there will
>be an unremovable cortex bomb somewhere in you (perhaps multiple places).
>If they don't get a signal from me everyday at say 4PM, can we say
>bye bye. :)

To easy to block the signal or move out of range. Ritual magic is much
easier and dosn't have nearly as many problem. Remember the cortex bomb
shadowtalk in cybertech. You don't want a situation like that happening to
a multimillion Nuyen ranger.

[GM's when I did my Texas campain I decided to make my rangers as close to
the legends as I could. Since the historical rangers used the most
advanced weaponry avalible in there day I figured that there awakened
counterparts would use the best at there disposal. Also since there are
stories of ranger companies winning against 50:1 odds I figured I couldn't
go to far over the top. My rangers fit the lengends quite nicely but I
probably should post some stats for more normal magic using rangers (as
soon as I find them)]

SteveD

>--
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>Lehlan Decker 644-4534 Systems Development
>decker@****.fsu.edu http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~decker
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>"Uh-Oh Toto, it doesn't look like we're gods anymore."
>
Stephen Delear
University of Missouri-Columbia
Check out my Photo Message Board at http://www.missouri.edu/~c715591
"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click
the shutter" Ansel Adams
Message no. 9
From: Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 11:53:39 +1000
Stephen Delear writes:
>Actually you weren't paying much attention. The guy above wasn't military
>he was law enforcment. We're talking law enforcement on the one man to
>four counties Texas badlands scale. When you normally deal with 10:1 or
>worse odds against cybered go gangers rustling cattle for the azzies
>accross the boarder then you better have some hellish hardware. Of course
>not all rangers are as heavly cybered out of 106, 78 are in some way
>magically active (keep in mind we're talking about the small law
>enforcement arm not the huge military arm). Sure my cybertroll would drop
>most runners on site, what do you think his job is? Keep in mind for most
>situations the rangers will only send one man (though you will see more for
>major bug hives and the like). If they arn't truelly scary they're dead.


Your cybertroll, with 20 million nuyen of cyber, will be killed in a few
minutes by a group of four or five gangers, bedded down under cover a few
hundred meters away, with scopes on light machine guns. Or a few more closer
in with assault rifles. Or faster by a sniper hidden in scrubland. As for
detecting him, well, gee, that's what camouflage is for.

Gee, 20 million+, wiped out by a group of gangers with less than 10,000 in
gear.

Cyber is a BIG boost, but one person is not an army, even if they are
massively cybered. I strongly suspect that the Texans would find it
incredibly more cost effective to send out a patrol of 10 or so lightly
cybered individuals (less than 1 mill a pop).

The historical circumstances that allowed the Texan Rangers to function were
unique at the time, and would not be repeated. Not to mention that a LOT of
Rangers found themselves dead due to a lack of support and a lot of
contempt. The authority the Rangers wielded, IMHO, was the fact that if a
Ranger was on the scene, then that meant there was a good possibility the
army would respond if things didn't calm down.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 10
From: Spider Murphy <crickel@***.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 20:32:50 -0600
Robert Watkins wrote:

> Your cybertroll, with 20 million nuyen of cyber, will be killed in a few
> minutes by a group of four or five gangers, bedded down under cover a few
> hundred meters away, with scopes on light machine guns. Or a few more closer
> in with assault rifles. Or faster by a sniper hidden in scrubland. As for
> detecting him, well, gee, that's what camouflage is for.
>
> Gee, 20 million+, wiped out by a group of gangers with less than 10,000 in
> gear.

I might throw my 2 cents in here at this point. Let me point out the glory of
Heavy Milspec Armor!

Take a look at the armor rating. Obscene, isn't it? Now add a helmet. What's all
that armor add up to? Hmm.. Looks like 16/12. Now, keep in mind that this is
hard armor. "Hard armor? What's that mean?" you say? Well, simply put...

Any attack with an unmodified power of 16 or less bounces off, period, no
questions asked.

LMGs? Not a problem. Sniper rifles? Only 15S there. How about the Vindicator
Minigun? Well, the unmodified power is 7S. Those 15 bullets will fly everywhere,
but they'll bounce off the guy. Even the 16D rockets and missles will get
shrugged off. The only weapons capable of piercing heavy milspec are... the
Generic Assualt Cannon, the Panther Assualt Cannon, and the Great Dragon missle
launcher. The Great Dragon is your best bet because it's only got an
availability of 8/48 hours. Oh, a high-explosive or anti-personnel mortar would
do it, too.

In other words.. "Gangers? What gangers?"

> Cyber is a BIG boost, but one person is not an army, even if they are
> massively cybered. I strongly suspect that the Texans would find it
> incredibly more cost effective to send out a patrol of 10 or so lightly
> cybered individuals (less than 1 mill a pop).

Don't forget the cost of training, housing, etc., of those 10 soldiers, as
opposed to the one specialist.

Spider Murphy
Message no. 11
From: Lehlan Decker <decker@****.FSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 10:44:58 -0500
On Tue, Mar 24, 1998 at 07:44:34PM -0600, Stephen Delear wrote:
> At 11:17 AM 98-03-24 -0500, you wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> Actually you weren't paying much attention. The guy above wasn't military
> he was law enforcment. We're talking law enforcement on the one man to
> four counties Texas badlands scale. When you normally deal with 10:1 or
> worse odds against cybered go gangers rustling cattle for the azzies
> accross the boarder then you better have some hellish hardware. Of course
> not all rangers are as heavly cybered out of 106, 78 are in some way
> magically active (keep in mind we're talking about the small law
> enforcement arm not the huge military arm). Sure my cybertroll would drop
> most runners on site, what do you think his job is? Keep in mind for most
> situations the rangers will only send one man (though you will see more for
> major bug hives and the like). If they arn't truelly scary they're dead.
>
I understand what your trying to do. But you just said these guys
weren't military. Their basically specialized law enforcement.
That would be similiar to Jacksonville, or the State of Florida
or somesuch going we need 20 million dollars (ok possibly less for
government deals), to cyber up this one guy. Local government would
laugh at you.
And no matter how tough one guy is, I could have a small platoon
of "normal" guys with decent weaponry and boosted 1, take on the
go-gangers and probably win. I just don't see the cost vs benefit
at that level. But once again it sounds like your playing a much
higher power level then most.


<SNIP CORTEX BOMB!!>
>
> To easy to block the signal or move out of range. Ritual magic is much
> easier and dosn't have nearly as many problem. Remember the cortex bomb
> shadowtalk in cybertech. You don't want a situation like that happening to
> a multimillion Nuyen ranger.
>
If this wasn't a "local", I'd beam the signal from a satillite, and
know your location at all times. Your talking about a "human" being
(and we all know that everybody has a price), who is worth multi-millions,
and could take on 20+ normal people in a fair fight without a problem.
Perhaps I'm just paranoid. There's also that old thing about the
less essence you have, the more "unhuman" you become?
(I'd also have the ritual sampling). It also sounds like you have
several cyberware house rules (you mentioned in an earlier post).
So its hard to do comparisons by the normal methods.
Later.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Lehlan Decker 644-4534 Systems Development
decker@****.fsu.edu http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~decker
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uh-Oh Toto, it doesn't look like we're gods anymore."
Message no. 12
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 12:08:48 +0000
In article <35186CD2.7D8B93E5@***.edu>, Spider Murphy <crickel@***.EDU>
writes
>Robert Watkins wrote:
>
>> Your cybertroll, with 20 million nuyen of cyber, will be killed in a few
>> minutes by a group of four or five gangers, bedded down under cover a few
>> hundred meters away, with scopes on light machine guns. Or a few more closer
>> in with assault rifles. Or faster by a sniper hidden in scrubland. As for
>> detecting him, well, gee, that's what camouflage is for.
>>
>> Gee, 20 million+, wiped out by a group of gangers with less than 10,000 in
>> gear.
>
>I might throw my 2 cents in here at this point. Let me point out the glory of
>Heavy Milspec Armor!

Let me ask how you get into or out of a car wearing that stuff.

Oh, you're patrolling in APCs? In full mil-spec? How is this "law
enforcement" when you look more like ED-209 than a human being?

How about when you try to run? Remember, you're wearing fifty pounds of
hardshell armour as well as all your other gear.

Milspec armour has its uses, but it's not something you'd wear 24/7.

>Don't forget the cost of training, housing, etc., of those 10 soldiers, as
>opposed to the one specialist.

Still comes to less than one deltaware monster.

--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 13
From: Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 14:01:24 -0600
At 11:53 AM 98-03-25 +1000, you wrote:
>
>Your cybertroll, with 20 million nuyen of cyber, will be killed in a few
>minutes by a group of four or five gangers, bedded down under cover a few
>hundred meters away, with scopes on light machine guns. Or a few more closer
>in with assault rifles. Or faster by a sniper hidden in scrubland. As for
>detecting him, well, gee, that's what camouflage is for.
>
Actually I ran a ganger oneshot when I had a bunch more people show up to
one of my games then I was expecting. He got the gangers to come to him
one night (in this case by grabbing a shipment of BTL's the gangers were
going to smuggle into CAS), got about a miles head start on them and lead
them to a large hill. He pulled his car up at the top and took cover
behind it. He had about 40 seconds before the gangers closed to range.
This gave him a free turn. He pulled an autocannon. Using his tac
computer he aimed his first two shots in such a way as to herd the gangers
closer together but not actually hit any of them. Then he used his skill
and tac computer is such a way as to land a shot that caused a domino
effect amoung the gangers sending the sprawling off there bikes. Even
those who managed to stay in control were forced to stop (there are no
street lights out there and all hell was breaking loose). Since it was
night the gangers were giving off nice thermographic signitures. He'd put
two HVAR's on some decent Sentry pods (out of FoF)and concealed them in the
brush beforhand. He trigered them off of a radio slave. The gangers were
caught in the crossfire at short range. With the guns set up in such away
that they had to go into the line of fire to advance or escape. The troll
then pulled his combat gun (don't want to take the sentry guns out with an
explosion after all) and added a little fire of his own to the party. The
gangers who tried to get off the road found unfortunatly ran afoul of a
couple strategically placed anti-personal mines. The Troll then went in
and cleaned up the gangers that were left. Of course combat tactics arn't
the entire game and the combat at the end was only a small part of this
one.



>The historical circumstances that allowed the Texan Rangers to function were
>unique at the time, and would not be repeated. Not to mention that a LOT of
>Rangers found themselves dead due to a lack of support and a lot of
>contempt. The authority the Rangers wielded, IMHO, was the fact that if a
>Ranger was on the scene, then that meant there was a good possibility the
>army would respond if things didn't calm down.

Probably but the role playing oportunities of mythical rangers in the
awakened world were just to good to pass up and isn't how myths interact
with reality at the heart of any shadowrun game. Besides we're going off
arguing over a "flavor" character. I only had rangers show up a couple of
times (once to hire the PC's, once to be hunted by the PC's, the above one
shot where I wanted everyone dead at the end and I used one as a contact a
couple of times). The time that I had the Troll hunted was for a how much
cyber/bio does a person stop being human story line (i.e. the Troll went
nuts).




SteveD
>
>--
>.sig deleted to conserve electrons robert.watkins@******.com
>
Stephen Delear
University of Missouri-Columbia
Check out my Photo Message Board at http://www.missouri.edu/~c715591
"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click
the shutter" Ansel Adams
Message no. 14
From: Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 10:04:14 +1000
Stephen Delear writes:
>>Your cybertroll, with 20 million nuyen of cyber, will be killed in a few
>>minutes by a group of four or five gangers, bedded down under cover a few
>>hundred meters away, with scopes on light machine guns. Or a few more
closer
>>in with assault rifles. Or faster by a sniper hidden in scrubland. As for
>>detecting him, well, gee, that's what camouflage is for.
>>
[Scenario snipped]

A good story, Stephen, and one which shows the power of your cybertroll. But
it ignored my comment: gangers, in prepared positions, with assault rifles,
by ambush, would take your troll down. Your scenario was the reverse: Your
troll lead the gangers into his carefully prepared killing field. Of course
he won. Try it the other way around.

As soon as the opposition hears that, oh my good, the super troll is after
us, they are going to prepare for it. After one or two organisations are
busted like this, then the rest will wise up. How would your troll have
fared, say, if the gangers, knowing what was facing them, decided to pull
out the heavy ordanance (say, an anti-personnel rocket, or even a mortar)?
(Yeah, gangs in my game can get them when they really need them, but they
don't use them as it brings too much high-level attention. See "Elven Fire"
for a typical level of firepower in my game for a top-level gang.) Heck, how
would he have faced up to a mage sitting a few kilometres back, with
low-light scopes, zapping mana bolts?

--
sig deleted to conserve electrons robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 15
From: Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 18:16:20 -0600
At 10:44 AM 98-03-25 -0500, you wrote:
>On Tue, Mar 24, 1998 at 07:44:34PM -0600, Stephen Delear wrote:
>> At 11:17 AM 98-03-24 -0500, you wrote:
><SNIP>
ke). If they arn't truelly scary they're dead.
>>
>I understand what your trying to do. But you just said these guys
>weren't military. Their basically specialized law enforcement.
>That would be similiar to Jacksonville, or the State of Florida
>or somesuch going we need 20 million dollars (ok possibly less for
>government deals), to cyber up this one guy. Local government would
>laugh at you.

Local goverment??? What local goverment? Most of Texas in my game (out
side of the major metroplexes) is small towns that are nearly unaccessible
by anything but air or horseback (there hasn't been much road work in Texas
since the treaty of Denver). Quite frankly if there is local law
enforcment it's one sheriff (who's probably uncybered but might be
magically active) and maybe a posse of ranchers with shotguns. Getting one
person there is much easier then getting a small platoon.

>And no matter how tough one guy is, I could have a small platoon
>of "normal" guys with decent weaponry and boosted 1, take on the
>go-gangers and probably win. I just don't see the cost vs benefit
>at that level. But once again it sounds like your playing a much
>higher power level then most.

Everyone in my group was a magic user at some level or another. I think
that says about all that needs to be said about the power level of the game.
>
>
><SNIP CORTEX BOMB!!>
>>
>> To easy to block the signal or move out of range. Ritual magic is much
>> easier and dosn't have nearly as many problem. Remember the cortex bomb
>> shadowtalk in cybertech. You don't want a situation like that happening to
>> a multimillion Nuyen ranger.
>>
>If this wasn't a "local", I'd beam the signal from a satillite, and
>know your location at all times. Your talking about a "human" being

I don't think you'd be able to get a reciver small enough or have a
satellite in position at all times.

>(and we all know that everybody has a price), who is worth multi-millions,
>and could take on 20+ normal people in a fair fight without a problem.
>Perhaps I'm just paranoid. There's also that old thing about the
>less essence you have, the more "unhuman" you become?
>(I'd also have the ritual sampling). It also sounds like you have
>several cyberware house rules (you mentioned in an earlier post).
>So its hard to do comparisons by the normal methods.
>Later.
Maybe I guess I just don't have players use cyber enough to be really aware
of everything it can do.

SteveD

>--
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>Lehlan Decker 644-4534 Systems Development
>decker@****.fsu.edu http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~decker
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>"Uh-Oh Toto, it doesn't look like we're gods anymore."
>
Stephen Delear
University of Missouri-Columbia
Check out my Photo Message Board at http://www.missouri.edu/~c715591
"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click
the shutter" Ansel Adams
Message no. 16
From: Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 20:12:28 -0600
At 10:04 AM 98-03-26 +1000, you wrote:
>Stephen Delear writes:
>>>Your cybertroll, with 20 million nuyen of cyber, will be killed in a few
>>>minutes by a group of four or five gangers, bedded down under cover a few
>>>hundred meters away, with scopes on light machine guns. Or a few more
>closer
>>>in with assault rifles. Or faster by a sniper hidden in scrubland. As for
>>>detecting him, well, gee, that's what camouflage is for.
>>>
>[Scenario snipped]
>
>A good story, Stephen, and one which shows the power of your cybertroll. But
>it ignored my comment: gangers, in prepared positions, with assault rifles,
>by ambush, would take your troll down. Your scenario was the reverse: Your
>troll lead the gangers into his carefully prepared killing field. Of course
>he won. Try it the other way around.

Um your troops are picked up at range by there thermographic signiture,
noticed on a low ligh sweep, triangulated on by his spatial recognition
unit, show anomolies in his general ranging sweep causing the tact computer
to kick in for a closer look or are otherwise picked up by his detection
cyber. He then chunks a few grenades at the problem. You have to get
surprise before you can use it.

>
>As soon as the opposition hears that, oh my good, the super troll is after
>us, they are going to prepare for it. After one or two organisations are
>busted like this, then the rest will wise up. How would your troll have
>fared, say, if the gangers, knowing what was facing them, decided to pull
>out the heavy ordanance (say, an anti-personnel rocket, or even a mortar)?
>(Yeah, gangs in my game can get them when they really need them, but they
>don't use them as it brings too much high-level attention. See "Elven Fire"
>for a typical level of firepower in my game for a top-level gang.) Heck, how
>would he have faced up to a mage sitting a few kilometres back, with
>low-light scopes, zapping mana bolts?

I'd assume that if it was a magical problem they would send in a magic user
and keep the Troll for the more mundane problems. Besides as a
photographer let me assure you no one is sitting a "few kilometers back"
with a low light optical scope. Something that powerfull would be larger
then most automobiles. Also have you ever tried to find and follow
something at an extreamly high magnification? Unless you know where to
look and have experince with the long glass you'll end up zipping past them
more then you're on target (really long glass takes some getting use to).
Finally there's the fact that you couldn't get a zoom on this contraption
so the chances of you being to close or to far away are high. Oh and then
there's the fact that a 1200mm lense cost upwards of $75K and your talking
about something at least twice as long. Also I wouldn't want to be the one
who had to focus such an contraption.

SteveD
>
>--
>sig deleted to conserve electrons robert.watkins@******.com
>
Stephen Delear
University of Missouri-Columbia
Check out my Photo Message Board at http://www.missouri.edu/~c715591
"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click
the shutter" Ansel Adams
Message no. 17
From: Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 12:26:17 +1000
Stephen Delear writes:
>>A good story, Stephen, and one which shows the power of your cybertroll.
But
>>it ignored my comment: gangers, in prepared positions, with assault
rifles,
>>by ambush, would take your troll down. Your scenario was the reverse: Your
>>troll lead the gangers into his carefully prepared killing field. Of
course
>>he won. Try it the other way around.
>
>Um your troops are picked up at range by there thermographic signiture,
>noticed on a low ligh sweep, triangulated on by his spatial recognition
>unit, show anomolies in his general ranging sweep causing the tact computer
>to kick in for a closer look or are otherwise picked up by his detection
>cyber. He then chunks a few grenades at the problem. You have to get
>surprise before you can use it.


He can throw grenades further than an assault rifle can shoot? He can
distinguishe a camouflaged individual in the day in, say, a building (where
there may be "innocent" bystanders)? This isn't a person, this is a god.

>>
>>As soon as the opposition hears that, oh my good, the super troll is after
>>us, they are going to prepare for it. After one or two organisations are
>>busted like this, then the rest will wise up. How would your troll have
>>fared, say, if the gangers, knowing what was facing them, decided to pull
>>out the heavy ordanance (say, an anti-personnel rocket, or even a mortar)?
>>(Yeah, gangs in my game can get them when they really need them, but they
>>don't use them as it brings too much high-level attention. See "Elven
Fire"
>>for a typical level of firepower in my game for a top-level gang.) Heck,
how
>>would he have faced up to a mage sitting a few kilometres back, with
>>low-light scopes, zapping mana bolts?
>
>I'd assume that if it was a magical problem they would send in a magic user
>and keep the Troll for the more mundane problems.

Only if they knew that it was a magical problem to begin with. :)

>Besides as a
>photographer let me assure you no one is sitting a "few kilometers back"
>with a low light optical scope. Something that powerfull would be larger
>then most automobiles. Also have you ever tried to find and follow
>something at an extreamly high magnification?

Yep... you identify the target, tell the computer to lock on and follow.
This stuff is done by the military fairly often. The size, perhaps is a
problem... I don't know optical stuff that well. But the only problem would
be the low-light aspect, so what do you do if this is daytime?

The point I'm making is that it is fairly easy to take down your troll,
given sufficent resources (significantly lower than 20 mil). Further more,
the resources wouldn't be too hard to get, given the stated opposition of
your troll, and the fact that he's sporting 20 mil in cyber, most of which
would stil be salvagable, would give people incentive.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 18
From: Wyrmy The powerful <elfman@*****.NET>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 21:14:09 -0600
> >>would he have faced up to a mage sitting a few kilometres back, with
> >>low-light scopes, zapping mana bolts?
I hope you mean mirror(optical) binoculars, because you cant cast magic
through tech, unless its cybereyes.
--
If you are a dreamer come in,
If you are a dreeamer, a wisher,
A liar, a magic jelly bean buyer,
Come In!
-What should be the motto of all internet users.
Message no. 19
From: Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 22:10:19 -0600
At 12:26 PM 98-03-26 +1000, you wrote:
>
>He can throw grenades further than an assault rifle can shoot? He can
>distinguishe a camouflaged individual in the day in, say, a building (where
>there may be "innocent" bystanders)? This isn't a person, this is a god.

Eletronic image mags III. Assault rifle extreme range 101-250, underbarrel
grenade launcher extreme range 151 to 300
>

>Only if they knew that it was a magical problem to begin with. :)

Well if he's in field, out of contact and finds that he's dealing with a
magic problem then it's time he used some brain power to figure a way out
(with thermo a few "cold smoke" grenades should help some)
>
>>Besides as a
>>photographer let me assure you no one is sitting a "few kilometers back"
>>with a low light optical scope. Something that powerfull would be larger
>>then most automobiles. Also have you ever tried to find and follow
>>something at an extreamly high magnification?
>
>Yep... you identify the target, tell the computer to lock on and follow.
>This stuff is done by the military fairly often. The size, perhaps is a
>problem... I don't know optical stuff that well. But the only problem would
>be the low-light aspect, so what do you do if this is daytime?

The lense would still be a monster. You just can't get that much
magnification through a decent sized lense and still have enough light
reaching the eye to see by.
>
>The point I'm making is that it is fairly easy to take down your troll,
>given sufficent resources (significantly lower than 20 mil). Further more,
>the resources wouldn't be too hard to get, given the stated opposition of
>your troll, and the fact that he's sporting 20 mil in cyber, most of which
>would stil be salvagable, would give people incentive.

Actually Deltaware is to specialized to be salvageable (at least in my
game, if not I would have given him a cortex bomb set to go off upon his
death). Sure magic can take him down same thing goes for your average
street sam but if you know you're going to need a sam and have the money
why not do this one (and belive me 20 mil to have a guy like this to call
upon when needed is worth it for the piece of mind. Keep in mind we're
talking about budget in the billions here and a state that dosn't have both
the man power to maintain it's boarder and maintain law. Sure you could
send in 10 less cybered me to get the same job done but to replace the
whole group with the same effect you'd need 1060. When you only have
50,000 in your army you can't be detailing out a combat ready fifth of it
to handle internal problems).



SteveD


>--
>.sig deleted to conserve electrons robert.watkins@******.com
>
Stephen Delear
University of Missouri-Columbia
Check out my Photo Message Board at http://www.missouri.edu/~c715591
"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click
the shutter" Ansel Adams
Message no. 20
From: Frank Pelletier <jeanpell@****.IVIC.QC.CA>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 12:02:01 +0000
Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU> once wrote,

(snipped)

> Actually Deltaware is to specialized to be salvageable (at least in my
> game, if not I would have given him a cortex bomb set to go off upon his
> death). Sure magic can take him down same thing goes for your average
> street sam

Deltaware, as far as cannon goes, is available in only 7 clinics
world-wide. Very few people get access to those. And by the looks of
things, well, there's a couple of things I noticed. Let's see...

Probably full sensory suite (Eyes, ears), and a datajack. Delta-grade, I presume.
Add some headware memory. Probably an internal cam. Radio communications
gear, hard-crypto at extremely high levels. That's only headware. Even
with delta, that's a chunk of essence gone. And there's the tac computer.
Them's take a shitload of essence, even in delta form. We have that. Add
the smartgun link, some sort of bone lacing, surely some sort of
muscle augmentation. Cybernetic limbs? I don't know. Torso? Hard armor
? Probably not. There's not much essence left, eh? What's next? Oh...
reflexes. Can't go far without those reflexes. So what did you leave
out? Bioware on a cybermonster don't work that well, remember
(see Cybertechnology).

Welcome to the wonderful world of Shadowrun. As a basic rule, I say it
takes about 10% of an investment to destroy said investment. Your 20 mil
troll? Gimme 2 mil and I bust his ass. Hell, gimme a good shooter, under
ambush, and a Barrett, and I can lodge a bullet in his brain, null sweat.
Milspec is nice. But Ammo is better. Especially 14D APDS called shots.
Ouch, that smarts. I'm not saying your pseudo-"God" ain't strong. But
his role seems limited, and he could easily be replaced by a good platoon
of kamikaze-enhanced men.

If your Godtroll was intended as a scare weapon, disuasion, he's not that
good. 2 GMC Panzers barreling down are a lot more scarier. (Not to
mention loaded with tons of bangbang goodies. I don't see your troll
carrying a Vigilant canon.).

Or he was designed as a special covert ops. Covert ops don't tend to be
trolls with milspec. At least, not in my world. They tend to be
ruthenium-covered highly-skilled individuals. Those kinds of ops depend a
lot more on skill than attributes. After all, if you need to use your
reaction or armor on a black ops, you've already failed.

That leaves those "in-between" ops. Those low-profile infiltrations, but
with a high-risk of shootouts. What we call, yep, shadowruns. 20 mil?
Hire a team for 5 % of that.

Hell, just face it. Your troll is obselete from a tactical point of view. Whatever
he can do, I can do better, cheaper. It just makes financial sense.

But, after all, SR ain't even close to real life. So have a blast, I
say. Just don't run around shouting that he's invincible. If he
breathes, I can easily kill it, at a fraction of the cost. The old
aircraft vs. missile debate. Things haven't changed much, eh?

Trinity
------------------------------------------------------
Frank Pelletier
Trinity@********.com, jeanpell@****.qc.ca
This message was brought to you by A Tribe Called Quest - "Beats, Rhymes
and Life"

"Life is a blur"
Message no. 21
From: Frank Pelletier <jeanpell@****.IVIC.QC.CA>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 11:36:37 +0000
Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU> once wrote,

*snipped part about God the Troll getting caught by gangers*

> >A good story, Stephen, and one which shows the power of your cybertroll. But
> >it ignored my comment: gangers, in prepared positions, with assault rifles,
> >by ambush, would take your troll down. Your scenario was the reverse: Your
> >troll lead the gangers into his carefully prepared killing field. Of course
> >he won. Try it the other way around.
>
> Um your troops are picked up at range by there thermographic signiture,
> noticed on a low ligh sweep, triangulated on by his spatial recognition
> unit, show anomolies in his general ranging sweep causing the tact computer
> to kick in for a closer look or are otherwise picked up by his detection
> cyber. He then chunks a few grenades at the problem. You have to get
> surprise before you can use it.

*Sigh* Did I stumble into the "My munchie is better than yours list",
Twillight 2000 style?

More to the point. Thermo sweeps, low-light spotting, checking anomalies.
That's all very nice. But you have to be expecting those things.

There's one final solution to all this. Barrett, at long range, called
shot to the head. Bang. Game Over. Gimme my 20 mil.

And between you and me...for 20 mil... wouldn't you rather have a flight
of Aguillar-X? Two Banshees... or a downpayment on that new Stonewall
you all crave? A corp or army might profit from investing 20 mil in a vatjob
wetworker, smooth as slick, not a sound, not a trace. But a stupid-ass,
subtle-as-hell walking gun show? Hell no... gimme a platoon of low-grade
grunts anytime...

Trinity
------------------------------------------------------
Frank Pelletier
Trinity@********.com, jeanpell@****.qc.ca
This message was brought to you by A Tribe Called Quest - "The Low-End
theory"

"Life is a blur"
Message no. 22
From: Chris Lubrecht <lubrecht@***.NET>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 10:53:43 -0500
>
>But, after all, SR ain't even close to real life. So have a blast, I
>say. Just don't run around shouting that he's invincible. If he
>breathes, I can easily kill it, at a fraction of the cost. The old
>aircraft vs. missile debate. Things haven't changed much, eh?



If you give it stats...they will kill it.
-Tom Dowd (or someone at FASA :) )


Nigel
Message no. 23
From: JonSzeto <JonSzeto@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 11:27:52 EST
Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM> wrote,

> A good story, Stephen, and one which shows the power of your cybertroll. But
> it ignored my comment: gangers, in prepared positions, with assault rifles,
> by ambush, would take your troll down. Your scenario was the reverse: Your
> troll lead the gangers into his carefully prepared killing field. Of course
> he won. Try it the other way around.

<rant>
That point touches on the main contention I have with the so-called
"military" sites scattered throughout the Web. Many/most of the sites
I have seen portray SF-type of troops as ultimate level, kick-@$$
opposition against shadowrunners, which is not accurate. What makes
special forces "special" is the way they are used, both in war and in
peacetime. Use them wrong, and they just become cannon fodder, just
like every other gun-toting yahoo. (Witness, for example, the incident
in Somalia five years ago, in which common Somalian "thugs" routed a
patrol of Army Rangers.)

If anything, Special Forces are SUBTLE, and their strong suits should be
stealth and self-sufficiency. It's kind of like the old saying about
shadowruns: the best SF-missions are those in which the enemy doesn't
know they've been hit. If an SF mission erupts into a high-powered gun
battle, then they've failed in their mission.

A lot of the so-called "SpecOps" sites go into great detail about how
SF-types are equipped, and what kind of training it takes to make an
SF-trooper (and their estimated skills-list for a "typical" SF-type).
However, they don't specify how SF-types are used, which entirely
misses the point. The truth is, SF missions tend to vary a lot,
depending on the type of unit being discussed. Some SF-type units are
organized primarily for commando-style operations (SEALs and rangers
come to my mind best). Others are organized to operate independently
in remote areas, conducting a variety of missions deep in hostile
territory (such as the Vietnam-era LRRPs and modern Special Forces).
And other special forces fulfill non-conventional roles in war and
operations other than war (such as PsyOps and Civil Affairs).

Here's an analogy I like to use: think of conventional military as a
machete, and think of SF as a surgeon's scalpel. You don't use a
machete to perform a frontal lobotomy, and you don't use a scalpel to
hack through the jungle.
</rant>

My $.02.

-- Jon
Message no. 24
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 11:04:23 -0700
JonSzeto wrote:
/
/ <rant>

[snip]

/ Here's an analogy I like to use: think of conventional military as a
/ machete, and think of SF as a surgeon's scalpel. You don't use a
/ machete to perform a frontal lobotomy, and you don't use a scalpel to
/ hack through the jungle.
/ </rant>

Well said.

-David
--
"Belief is a truth held in the mind.
Faith is a fire in the heart."
- Joseph F. Newton
--
ShadowRN GridSec
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
Message no. 25
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 18:34:43 +0000
In article <199803260212.UAA145418@****.missouri.edu>, Stephen Delear
<c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU> writes
>Um your troops are picked up at range by there thermographic signiture,
>noticed on a low ligh sweep, triangulated on by his spatial recognition
>unit, show anomolies in his general ranging sweep causing the tact computer
>to kick in for a closer look or are otherwise picked up by his detection
>cyber. He then chunks a few grenades at the problem. You have to get
>surprise before you can use it.

This is your idea of urban law enforcement?

Bloody hell.

The problem with this scenario is that you end up slaughtering most of
the people you were there to protect.

The problem with a city is people. People everywhere. How do you pick
lurking gang members intent on ambush from the merely loitering? And you
_don't_ use grenades casually in city streets, unless you delight in
mass murder.


>I'd assume that if it was a magical problem they would send in a magic user
>and keep the Troll for the more mundane problems.

How do you know whether it's a magical or a mundane problem, until you
get units on scene?


--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 26
From: Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 14:20:46 -0600
At 12:02 PM 98-03-25 +0000, you wrote:
>
>Deltaware, as far as cannon goes, is available in only 7 clinics
>world-wide. Very few people get access to those. And by the looks of
>things, well, there's a couple of things I noticed. Let's see...

My reaction to that has always been if you know Aztlan is on the boarder
and that they have Deltaware then you're damn well going to be the one with
clinic number eight and if alot of cyberware is designed and manufactored
in your territory well that only makes things so much the easier.

>
>Probably full sensory suite (Eyes, ears), and a datajack. Delta-grade, I
presume.
>Add some headware memory. Probably an internal cam. Radio communications
>gear, hard-crypto at extremely high levels. That's only headware. Even

Radio com gear? For somebody who's job description is go out of contact
find what's wrong and fix it?

>with delta, that's a chunk of essence gone. And there's the tac computer.
>Them's take a shitload of essence, even in delta form. We have that. Add

And they arn't really cost effective.

>the smartgun link, some sort of bone lacing, surely some sort of
>muscle augmentation. Cybernetic limbs? I don't know. Torso? Hard armor

Bone lacing. Sure it'd be nice but we're talking someone with a bod of
11(12) here. If he dosn't have it, it really isn't going to make that much
of a difference.



>Welcome to the wonderful world of Shadowrun. As a basic rule, I say it
>takes about 10% of an investment to destroy said investment. Your 20 mil
>troll? Gimme 2 mil and I bust his ass. Hell, gimme a good shooter, under
>ambush, and a Barrett, and I can lodge a bullet in his brain, null sweat.

Ambush is a good way to kill things, the problem is achive it. Of course a
good olfactory booster could really shut you down (smells your gunpowder)
but personally I prefer him just to notice the thermo footprints that are
glowing nicely behind your position.


>If your Godtroll was intended as a scare weapon, disuasion, he's not that
>good. 2 GMC Panzers barreling down are a lot more scarier. (Not to
>mention loaded with tons of bangbang goodies. I don't see your troll
>carrying a Vigilant canon.).

Get them there then we'll talk.

>That leaves those "in-between" ops. Those low-profile infiltrations, but
>with a high-risk of shootouts. What we call, yep, shadowruns. 20 mil?
>Hire a team for 5 % of that.

Mr XYZ has just declared himself the second coming. He's and his gang have
taken over several town. It's to far from the boarder to send in the
Panzers and besides they have anti-tank weaponry (welcome to Texas). Looks
like it's the rangers problem.

Such and such a gang is terrorizing a town and hurting commerce. We can't
spare the troops for something like this.

Help we have a cyberzombie pinned down near the dam get somebody up here FAST!

I have the magical angle covered but need some mundane backup to handle the
cultists can you send somebody.

We need somebody to go two hundred miles into the backcountry. There are
no roads so you're looking at horseback. There should be a town there. We
need you to secure things enough so that we can put in an airstrip.

Take your pick out of your favorite western.
>
>Hell, just face it. Your troll is obselete from a tactical point of view.
Whatever
>he can do, I can do better, cheaper. It just makes financial sense.

Better, cheaper and with more men you mean. Sorry are armed force is by
treaty limited in size we need to make the most out of every man we have.
>
>But, after all, SR ain't even close to real life. So have a blast, I
>say. Just don't run around shouting that he's invincible. If he
>breathes, I can easily kill it, at a fraction of the cost. The old
>aircraft vs. missile debate. Things haven't changed much, eh?

Never said he was invincible just that my players had trouble killing him.

SteveD
>

>Trinity
>------------------------------------------------------
>Frank Pelletier
>Trinity@********.com, jeanpell@****.qc.ca
>This message was brought to you by A Tribe Called Quest - "Beats, Rhymes
>and Life"
>
>"Life is a blur"
>
Stephen Delear
University of Missouri-Columbia
Check out my Photo Message Board at http://www.missouri.edu/~c715591
"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click
the shutter" Ansel Adams
Message no. 27
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 18:35:37 +0000
In article <65b7d0f6.351a820a@***.com>, JonSzeto <JonSzeto@***.COM>
writes
><rant>
>That point touches on the main contention I have with the so-called
>"military" sites scattered throughout the Web. Many/most of the sites
>I have seen portray SF-type of troops as ultimate level, kick-@$$
>opposition against shadowrunners, which is not accurate. What makes
>special forces "special" is the way they are used, both in war and in
>peacetime. Use them wrong, and they just become cannon fodder, just
>like every other gun-toting yahoo. (Witness, for example, the incident
>in Somalia five years ago, in which common Somalian "thugs" routed a
>patrol of Army Rangers.)
>
>If anything, Special Forces are SUBTLE, and their strong suits should be
>stealth and self-sufficiency. It's kind of like the old saying about
>shadowruns: the best SF-missions are those in which the enemy doesn't
>know they've been hit. If an SF mission erupts into a high-powered gun
>battle, then they've failed in their mission.

Too true. Well said, Jon.


--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 28
From: Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 13:49:17 -0600
At 11:36 AM 98-03-25 +0000, you wrote:
>Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU> once wrote,
>

>
>More to the point. Thermo sweeps, low-light spotting, checking anomalies.
>That's all very nice. But you have to be expecting those things.
>
>There's one final solution to all this. Barrett, at long range, called
>shot to the head. Bang. Game Over. Gimme my 20 mil.
>
>And between you and me...for 20 mil... wouldn't you rather have a flight
>of Aguillar-X? Two Banshees... or a downpayment on that new Stonewall
>you all crave? A corp or army might profit from investing 20 mil in a vatjob
>wetworker, smooth as slick, not a sound, not a trace. But a stupid-ass,
>subtle-as-hell walking gun show? Hell no... gimme a platoon of low-grade
>grunts anytime...

Got to get the platoon there is the first place and in Texas that could be
harder then you think. First in 2058 no roadwork on the outback has been
done in about 30 years. Not enough interest and besides the military has
their roads which are designed in such a way to make them hard to take who
wants the Azzies trying flanking manervers on a back road. Even if you
could get a platoon where you wanted to handle some ganger with out some
farmer with an autocannon thinking that the invasion has happened and
taking a pot shot killing half your force you still have the problem with
numbers. Much better to have 106 rangers then 1060 troopers away from the
front doing law enforcement (the texas military is only 50,000 to them 1060
GROUND COMBAT PESONAL is a lot of men. Sure he looks like a real badass,
big with obveously augmented muscles and orthoskin (both popular mods
amount Trolls, muscle augs for the oberouse reason and orthoskin since it
dosn't interfear with the Trolls natural dermal plating). but all the
really big stuff is internal. There are 106 rangers (which means the law
enforcement groups small enough most people don't think about them) of
those 4 have large amounts of cyber (the one above, another troll who
provides protection to the governor, and two other rangers who've never
made an apperance in my game) most people arn't going to be prepared for
something like this.

I'll say this again TEXAS HAS THE FACILITES TO PRODUCE DELTA WARE, when you
have something like that you use it. When that's the only piece of Milspec
equipment that you're producing in your territory you're tempted to use it
even more. Cool down the origonal post was about spec ops cyber vrs
running cyber so I posted a NPC with heavy cyber and an interesting
personality. I'm not saying that I'd ever let a player come even close to
this level, I'm just surprised that people would think 20 mil is such a
big hit for a side unit of a force with a 4.8 billion annual budget. Let
me restate TEXAS GOT FOUR MEN AT THIS LEVEL FOR A TOTAL OUT OF POCKET COST
OF 20 MIL, the other 60 came from a corp deal and seizers. Of course this
isn't exaclly right since for the most part it way only moving money around
in the books, since Texas owns the means of production they entire thing
cost about 40 Mil in money actually spent (in other words Ares basically
paid for it with the money they spent for the right to cross examen the
Delta scientist that the Texans had managed to get out of Aztlan). So sit
back and remember it's only a show...ur game.

SteveD


>Trinity
>------------------------------------------------------
>Frank Pelletier
>Trinity@********.com, jeanpell@****.qc.ca
>This message was brought to you by A Tribe Called Quest - "The Low-End
>theory"
>
>"Life is a blur"
>
Stephen Delear
University of Missouri-Columbia
Check out my Photo Message Board at http://www.missouri.edu/~c715591
"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click
the shutter" Ansel Adams
Message no. 29
From: David Thompson <david.s.thompson@****.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 13:24:19 -0500
At 11:36 AM 3/25/98 +0000, Frank Pelletier wrote:
>Stephen Delear <c715591@******.MISSOURI.EDU> once wrote,
>
>*snipped part about God the Troll getting caught by gangers*
>
>> >A good story, Stephen, and one which shows the power of your
cybertroll. But
>> >it ignored my comment: gangers, in prepared positions, with assault
rifles,
>> >by ambush, would take your troll down. Your scenario was the reverse: Your
>> >troll lead the gangers into his carefully prepared killing field. Of
course
>> >he won. Try it the other way around.
>>
>> Um your troops are picked up at range by there thermographic signiture,
>> noticed on a low ligh sweep, triangulated on by his spatial recognition
>> unit, show anomolies in his general ranging sweep causing the tact computer
>> to kick in for a closer look or are otherwise picked up by his detection
>> cyber. He then chunks a few grenades at the problem. You have to get
>> surprise before you can use it.
>
>*Sigh* Did I stumble into the "My munchie is better than yours list",
>Twillight 2000 style?
>
>More to the point. Thermo sweeps, low-light spotting, checking anomalies.
>That's all very nice. But you have to be expecting those things.

A Tactical Computer is always expecting an ambush. That's the whole point.
>
>There's one final solution to all this. Barrett, at long range, called
>shot to the head. Bang. Game Over. Gimme my 20 mil.
>
>And between you and me...for 20 mil... wouldn't you rather have a flight
>of Aguillar-X? Two Banshees... or a downpayment on that new Stonewall
>you all crave? A corp or army might profit from investing 20 mil in a vatjob
>wetworker, smooth as slick, not a sound, not a trace. But a stupid-ass,
>subtle-as-hell walking gun show? Hell no... gimme a platoon of low-grade
>grunts anytime...

I think everyone has missed the point here. I've been following this
thread and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of trash the troll, and all
your points are basically correct. But, you seem to have missed the fact
that the Troll is a Ranger, and that the whole point of the Texas rangers
is one man going out into the wilderness, bringing the law to those who
have none. Sure, this 20 million dollar troll isn't the most cost
effective way to do this, but it has style. So leave it be, sheesh.

--DT
Message no. 30
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 00:51:25 +0000
In article <3.0.32.19980326132418.00d9fb34@********.mail.yale.edu>,
David Thompson <david.s.thompson@****.EDU> writes

>A Tactical Computer is always expecting an ambush. That's the whole point.

Read Timothy Zahn's "Cobra" for an example of wired reflexes/tactical
computer. It's not nice for careless civilians.

>I think everyone has missed the point here. I've been following this
>thread and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of trash the troll, and all
>your points are basically correct. But, you seem to have missed the fact
>that the Troll is a Ranger, and that the whole point of the Texas rangers
>is one man going out into the wilderness, bringing the law to those who
>have none. Sure, this 20 million dollar troll isn't the most cost
>effective way to do this, but it has style. So leave it be, sheesh.

This is cyberpunk. Money is God. Profit is the bottom line. Texas
Rangers Incorporated have to show a return on investment.

Spend twenty megayen on one person, and they have to produce four
milliom yen a year to be worthwhile. Otherwise, keep the money and play
the stock market, and let someone else lose money being Texas cops.

--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 31
From: David Thompson <david.s.thompson@****.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 00:19:28 -0500
At 12:51 AM 3/27/98 +0000, you wrote:
>In article <3.0.32.19980326132418.00d9fb34@********.mail.yale.edu>,
>David Thompson <david.s.thompson@****.EDU> writes
>
>>A Tactical Computer is always expecting an ambush. That's the whole point.
>
>Read Timothy Zahn's "Cobra" for an example of wired reflexes/tactical
>computer. It's not nice for careless civilians.
>
>>I think everyone has missed the point here. I've been following this
>>thread and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of trash the troll, and all
>>your points are basically correct. But, you seem to have missed the fact
>>that the Troll is a Ranger, and that the whole point of the Texas rangers
>>is one man going out into the wilderness, bringing the law to those who
>>have none. Sure, this 20 million dollar troll isn't the most cost
>>effective way to do this, but it has style. So leave it be, sheesh.
>
>This is cyberpunk. Money is God. Profit is the bottom line. Texas
>Rangers Incorporated have to show a return on investment.
>
>Spend twenty megayen on one person, and they have to produce four
>milliom yen a year to be worthwhile. Otherwise, keep the money and play
>the stock market, and let someone else lose money being Texas cops.

The point was play enjoyability and style. Come on, a GM introducing an
old theme into a new game. It's the Lone Ranger, or some-such. Who cares
how much it costs in game. You can explain away the money. Maybe he was a
war hero who was wounded, and they just had to patch him up for national
pride. Or as he posted, they were just transferring 20 million from one
balance sheet to another in the same parent corp. And besides, they were
happy enough to do it because of some delta-ware making scientist who was
extracted. This is still a game we are playing, and we shouldn't lose
sight of fun ideas just because they aren't totally feasible. Of course, I
guess if realism is more important (and it is obviously very important to
some people), then don't introduce the troll. But you can't attack another
GM's creativity, saying that its not totally realistic. They obviously
care more about the idea, and don't care if it isn't totally feasible.

Besides, we are just talking about 4 trolls. Versus maybe 4 panzers or 6
combat helicopters. Remember, if you want to be totally realistic, you
have to remember that anything that flies needs incredibly expensive and
constant maintnance. We are talking mechanics, electronics, fuel, ground
crew, hangar and launch facilities, and pilots. This is 25 people easy
that have to be employed. Why not just buy the 'ware and plug it in, let
the Troll eat some Wheaties for fuel and patch him up occasionally? (Don't
answer that question, I already know the answer.)

--DT
Message no. 32
From: Lehlan Decker <decker@****.FSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shadowrun Military Site
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 09:21:31 -0500
On Thu, Mar 26, 1998 at 01:49:17PM -0600, Stephen Delear wrote:

> I'll say this again TEXAS HAS THE FACILITES TO PRODUCE DELTA WARE, when you
> have something like that you use it. When that's the only piece of Milspec
> equipment that you're producing in your territory you're tempted to use it
> even more. Cool down the origonal post was about spec ops cyber vrs
> running cyber so I posted a NPC with heavy cyber and an interesting
> personality. I'm not saying that I'd ever let a player come even close to
> this level, I'm just surprised that people would think 20 mil is such a
> big hit for a side unit of a force with a 4.8 billion annual budget. Let
> me restate TEXAS GOT FOUR MEN AT THIS LEVEL FOR A TOTAL OUT OF POCKET COST
> OF 20 MIL, the other 60 came from a corp deal and seizers. Of course this
> isn't exaclly right since for the most part it way only moving money around
> in the books, since Texas owns the means of production they entire thing
> cost about 40 Mil in money actually spent (in other words Ares basically
> paid for it with the money they spent for the right to cross examen the
> Delta scientist that the Texans had managed to get out of Aztlan). So sit
> back and remember it's only a show...ur game.
>
I think one problem is we all don't share the same view of Texas or
agree on the money issue. But we all play in different settings
so its no big deal. So I'll go ahead and leave this thread here.
Enjoy the game...
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Lehlan Decker 644-4534 Systems Development
decker@****.fsu.edu http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~decker
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uh-Oh Toto, it doesn't look like we're gods anymore."

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Shadowrun Military Site, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!