Oh, one thing to add. The quickest and easiest way to take down a dragon and its spirits involves the following forces:

1 blood mage
3 counties worth of helpless, mewling children.

PR wise, you're probably better off just letting the dragon rampage though.

you're not hearing what i'm saying. i'm saying that the hackers aren't going to know where the dragon is, and their software isn't going to know where the dragon is, ergo they cannot keep an ARO on the dragon's location.


calling up more spirits is fairly trivial, in terms of the amount of time it takes. for that matter, the dragon can cast the spell himself, allocating all his dice to effect and none to reducing the time it takes to make the spell permanent. he can drop it when he leaves the area of its effect, if he does so before it becomes permanent. in effect, he'd be sustaining it.


i know Concealment doesn't work on the astral, but the astral static spell does. the astral static spell will greatly reduce the ability of astral spotters to keep the dragon in sight. yes, the spotters will likely have lots of dice to throw, but the combination of astral static and terrain (assuming the dragon isn't silly enough to try and engage a superior force on open ground) will put a big dent in in their dice pools.


indeed. a draconic rampage is great cover for the disappearance of three counties' worth of children!

I don't think that Blood-zilla is meant to exist at all. It's just because of some poor rule-editing and somebody not paying attention to the bad rules that it constantly comes up. Let's leave Blood-zilla out of the equation. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

With 20+ spotters, easy enough to get the hits in. And the spirits of the dragon would be busy recasting the astral static all the time, or staying in one area (which would mean area bombardment), thus freeing up the real spirit army of the army's mages to attack and harry the dragon.

edit: already pointed out

I like the way you think.

the spirits don't need to stay in one area. they can move anywhere they want, as long as they can maintain LOS on the area of their spell. and with extended area and careful movement on the part of the dragon, they won't need to recast it that often--one or two of them per IP recasting would be plenty.

i'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's not a sure thing unless you start throwing truly ridiculous numbers into this task force. i mean, twenty guys in a single unit who all specialize in the combination of astral perception and target designation is already pushing the limits of believability for me.

casting mana static on the dragon's location is seriously the dumbest thing the dragon could possibly imagine doing. it will reduce the dragon's magic attribute, it will reduce the dragon's concealment bonus (magical effect, remember?)... i don't think mana static does what whoever it is that suggested it thinks it does. a background count is the last thing the dragon wants on it's location, because it will seriously screw over all of the dragon's magical abilities, which will be huge.

as for those saying that the hackers can't spot the dragon, read the explanation. no, seriously. read it. slowly. think it over for a second. you get people who can astrally perceive, and you have them point at the dragon's location, preferrably using their eyes. you get a program that tracks where they're all looking, and it uses some basic trigonometry to determine the location of the dragon. this is not subject to concealment, because the program doing trig is not looking at the dragon. if all of the people were to just stare at the sun, then the bloody program would give you an approximate location for the sun. this is the exact same math that you use to track someone's signal to a physical location, so don't try to pull out any crap about it not working.

honestly, vs an entire army, unless the dragon has planned something major (which you aren't allowing) the dragon is going to die horribly, and there is nothing the dragon can do to stop it.

A lot of this stuff is great if the GD send the Army a telegram beforehand letting them know when and where he is coming. Most of it is useless in a surprise situation like Denver.

... And then there's Maude.

it will reduce the dragon's abilities, yes, but it will reduce the abilities of enemy mages and astral spotters even more. if the dragon maintains a backgound count of 6, for instance, his magic will only be reduced to 6, leaving him a total of 16 sorcery dice and 14 conjuring dice. certainly less than he's used to--but most enemy mages will be reduced to something like 0-3 magic, leaving them only 9 dice for magic use (assuming all magical skills are at 6). the dragon loses something like 40% of his magical ability, while enemy mages loses at least 60%--if not completely negating all of their magical abilities completely (which is what happens if background count reduces your magic to 0 or less).


yes. now, read my counterpoint slowly. for the third time: astral perception is affected by the mana static spell. the reduced effectiveness of astral perception means that the spotters will be more likely to lose track of the dragon's location. if and when that happens, that negates any targeting bonuses those spotters may be bestowing on the shooting elements of this task force.


versus an entire army all at once sure. i don't believe that's what's being discussed, though--i believe this thread's purpose is determining the makeup of a task force designed for the purpose of taking out great dragons.

This thread is to determine what task force would prevent a dragon from taking out a capital or corp HQ.

Put a simple guidance system on 1000 or so finned 3 foot long titanium crowbars and fire them off of an orbiting space station. Have them home in on the guidance systems held by the astrally perceiving mages mentioned before .

Since the crowbars are going to be at or near terminal velocity when they hit the dragon we'll use a number I found for 1 m^3 meteorite of 2.4km/s...

Geosynchronous orbit is 35,780 km... or 35,780,000m. I'll use Bow ranges to calculate the strength of the hit to be nice... So the dragon is hit with a STR 1,789,000 thrown knife and has to soak 894,501 P per hit.

If you want to use LEO sattelites that's only 2000 km or 2,000,000 m. / 20 = 20,001P per hit.

[edit] this is in response to mfb's post before this [/edit]

sure, but on the astral the dragon would have to be hiding for the spotters to even have to make a check at all. i dunno about you, but i don't consider "flying around launching high-powered destructive spells" to be terribly closely related to "hiding". not to mention that for a dragon travelling alone, it's huge magic attribute is an essential part of it's offense. all of a sudden, it's limited to force 12 spells only, which is a severe weakening of what the dragon can do, relatively speaking.

also, how is the dragon going to get much of any concealment out of a mana static spell? as has been said, mana static is not a spell you place on yourself. you place it on a location. so hiding inside a mana static spell is essentially like saying "hi, i'm right here. please shoot me."

bear in mind, this isn't a great dragon, this is the great dragon of ultimate suckage, with no resources that are not directly tied to it, no ability to plan ahead, no personal armies, no customised spells... basically, it's not really a great dragon. it's just a big, scary, flying creature that happens to be really similar to one at first glance. so sure, a *real* great dragon probably has a mana static spell that is targetted on something and moves with it, and which is aspected towards the great dragon. but that's not what you're dealing with in this situation.

wouldn't the bar inciderate in the autmosphere?
hehe, i can just think of the consequences if they happen to miss the dragon (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

Yes, a real great dragon would have an army, and spies at his beck and call. this is just to see if a GD has to be careful and avoid open battles, or if he can slug it out with an army. Some people think a GD cannot be hurt at all.

The task force would need to be something that can respond in an instant. Just go back and read the YotC Ghostwalker attacks. He walked in unannounced with a literal army of spirits and laid waste to very key targets. Once done, he flew off without a word, and there wasn't drek anyone was able to do to him. Hell, he shrugged off anti-aircraft missiles and destroyed an entire building with a single spell. Just the dragon himself is a HUGELY formidible opponent, even before you factor in his spirits.

Now if the dragon is running with Mana Static, that's not only going to hinder his ability, but the ability of the spirits he has casting at him. Spirits aren't going to *want* to go through a mana static spell, so that may cause issues. Assuming he's using it, he may or may not be using concealment. It's reasonable to assume that he may not be getting the benefit of both.

You can plan for one or the other, as others have. If you assume he's running both successfully, then you have a serious problem. He basically becomes undetectable (for the most part) and then taking him out is nigh impossible. After all, you can't kill what you can't find/see.

That said, firing multi-warhead fragmentation missiles at his *general* location could help pinpoint him. Maybe throwing up chaff and having sensors monitor their position as he flies through them to get the silhouette of his position. When someone is concealing their position, you have to interpret it through other means. Litter the sky with stuff he has no choice to fly through. Airburst a FAB missile to spread the bacteria all over the place. Magic becomes nearly useless on all sides, but you at least will know where to aim your arms.

The hardest part will be locating and isolating the dragon. Once that's done, you simply have to use enough big guns to take him down before he can target and remove your team.

No matter what, it's not going to be an easy snatch-and-grab kind of run. This team will *really* have to work at it for the first few times before they're able to consistently beat their ultra-powered quarry.

Nope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

What if he paints himself orange and screams? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif) RAAAR! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

edit: Hmmm, I might need to be careful with my obscure jokes, what with all the new people about recently.

Lol and they're canon

In the Shadowrun universe novel "House of the Sun" by Nigel D. Findley (Paperback -- July 1995), Project Thor is referred to as well as employed by suspected megacorporations when tensions on the island nation of Hawai'i rise and a war almost begins between the nation and several mega-corporation and criminal organizations.
Also in the Shadowrun universe, there are "Thor shots" which work as described above. One was used against Art Dankwalther, a man who was in the midst of economic warfare against a mega-corporation. In-universe characters have commented on that occasion being a literal definition of "overkill."

Man that could make for a awesome movie, I'd love to have a secret weapon called Project Thor
"Sire, we're outgunned and outmanned! what shall we do?"
"Not outgunned, Deploy Project Thor!"

Not outmanned for long either....

FASA actually used them in one of their wargames...

Anybody here remember Renegade Legion: Centurion?

I think it is important to note that Background Count hoses spells and spirits much worse than it hoses Astral Perception. Every point of Background drops all Force by one, and only harms astral perception by a die. If a Great Dragon wants to put up a Mana Static big enough to make a Force 8 spirit be unable to purchase the astral perception hit needed to find the great dragon, he's also left himself mundane and bereft of spirit support so that's a non-tactic.

Remember that mana static only really hurts (or conceals) while you are actually in it. If a Great Dragon is hiding in Mana Static (which I will remind you is only 24m across at the high end) the other team is going to be able to still benefit from guard and movement at full value while flying around at crazy speeds using Lasers and Gauss Cannon at extreme range.

---

As for the Dragon's spirits using Movement, I rather imagine they will do so. But it really doesn't matter, because Movement is a multiplier. I think it is a fair assumption that the dragon will have hundreds of services available on spirits that are 50% larger than anything the metahuman forces can come up with on short or any notice. But dragons and spirits fly at less than one hundred kilometers an hour. Even using movement on themselves with Force 12 spirits they are only covering about a thousand klicks an hour. They can't even quite outrun the sun.

---

Humanity is going to need to call upon a decently mobilized force, but when you have NoE flight it's really not hard to get to a point that is outside direct line of sight that is also within eighteen kilometers of the target.

I don't believe that there is anything you can do to prevent the -6 blindfire penalty, nor the -3 Extreme Range penalty on your heavy weapons fire. But you get a +2 for Smart Linking, and a +2 for Control Rigging. And you really don't need more than one hit to make the Dragon lose a substantial portion of his life's blood.

Truth be told, many of the proposed Dragon defenses are unlikely to come together. There's a limit of some kind to how many spells he can actually sustain. And so while he may well have the Detect Life, and the Detect Weapons, and the Barrier, and the Armor, and the Combat Senses, and the Improved Reflexes, and the Trid Phantasm... chances are he actually won't have all of that because he's "just" a Grade 6 Initiate. So we really are dealing with a worst case scenario already - one in which he happens to have exactly the right spell defenses for the tactics we are employing. And looking at the math those defenses just aren't enough. They aren't near enough to defend themselves against what a single wing of Aztec Eagle Warrior Air Force is capable of scrambling against a sufficient threat within five minutes.

-Frank

Indeed. In a game like Shadowrun, a Great Dragon is just an exceptionally sturdy eggshell with an unusually large hammer.

eh. to take Ghostwalker as an example, 'hiding' just means 'flying around the block once'. the spotters are dual-natured, so they're limited to the speed at which they can run or maybe drive; the dragon is a lot faster and a lot more manueverable. astral perception doesn't work through physical obstructions; if the terrain is favorable, the dragon can use that fact to limit the spotters' ability to spot him.


if SM has the extended area option that MitS had, i can't find it. that does put a dent in the effectiveness of the spell. even without it, though, you can simply reverse the strategy: rather than using it to cover the dragon, plop it down on any dual-natured entity in the area that isn't the dragon or one of its spirits. that has the added advantage of not affecting the dragon or his spirits; the spotters will be blinded until they move out of range of the spell, by which time the dragon will be out of sight behind some physical obstruction.


a spirit can't act as a spotter. it doesn't have the skill, and it doesn't have the technology. moreover, spotting a dragon is not a situation where the spotter is likely to have an exceptionally large dice pool, nor is it not-threatening and/or non-stressful. purchasing hits is not, i would say, an option here.