Lone Star and you, How to keep them away when on runs. Options

[Emperor Tippy]

One of the worst things that can happen to a shadowrun is Lone Star showing up. They can and will bring more resources agaisnt you than you can ever hope to defeat, multiple FRT's, SWAT, drone surveillance, armed helicopters, etc. And all of that is the standard response to a shadowrun in progress report. Lone Star knows that your average shadowrunner is cybered to the gills, has magical support, and is generally better armed than the average Lone Star Patrolman and maybe even a FRT.

So how do you deal with this problem? The obvious solution is to ensure that Lone Star is never called until after you have finished the run. But any plan that assumes everything goes right is a stupid plan.

First I will deal with the preemptive measures that can delay or stop Lone Star from responding.

The same officers generally patrol in the same area every day (so that they can spot problems faster). If you hack that areas comlinks a day or so before you can upload a simple agent with an edit program that will intercept all calls from dispatch and send fake responses. Dispatch gets a call about a robbery in progress and tells the cops in the area to check it out. The agent intercepts the call and responds by saying it's a false alarm. This agent can also forward all communications to your team, so you know when a Lone Star response in in route. Another use for this is to hack a cops comlink who is in a very different area from where the run is to happen and fake an officer down/ shadowrun in progress call to dispatch. Lone Star responds to such calls with pretty much everything they have, meaning you can delay the response to your run by at least a few miniutes.

Lone Star also keeps drones on overwatch. You want to take these down or hack them before the run starts. But if you only take out the drone watching the area of the run then Lone Star will be suspicious and send back up. One of the easiest ways to take out a drone is to use a little Fly Spy that carries a small explosive load. Use 10 or so and have them take out separate drones all at the same time. This is expensive but is useful on very lucrative runs where a quick response is expected. Hacking a drone is much cheaper but can be detected easier.

The third way to get Lone Star busy else were is to higher Shadow Runners to do other runs in other areas at the same time. Give the cops an anonymous tip from a disposable comlink and the other team deals with the Lone Star response.

The fourth way to keep Lone Star busy is to call in bomb threats, robberies, kidnappings, murders, etc. all over the sprawl and all at the same time. This works best if you have planted a few bombs in trash cans or cars before hand (after the first one goes off they will take the rest seriously). Drop a couple bodies in places they won't be quickly discovered and call those in as well.


Well now onto how to get away once the police start chasing you. One of the best ways is to use take a FlySpy with a bit of plastic explosives on it and fly it into the wheel well of the cop cars in the area pre run. Once the cop starts chasing you, you send the signal for the drone to explode and all the sudden the cop car loses a tire.


Now what if the worst should happen and you get caught inside the building when Lone Star shows up. Well hopefully you didn't kill all of the guards/people inside. Hostage situations are much preferable to Lone Star storming the place. Now hopefully you remembered to bring the explosives. Sit the hostages in a room with a few kilograms of explosives and tell the cops that the explosives are linked to the bio monitors everyone on your team is wearing. Make sure to mention that the biomonitors send a continuous signal and if its cut off (say fro ma jammer), the bomb detonates.

Now Lone Star would most likely just charge the building and blame the deaths on you. To avoid this you should set up an automated message to be sent from a disposable comlink in the event you don't contact it before a certain time. This comlink is to call every news service and let them know about the hostage crisis (and that the bomb will only detonate if one of us is killed). With the media on site Lone Star is alot less likely to just charge you.

It's best to let Lone Star know that you have planted bombs all over the Sprawl and all are on timers (its a good idea to actually have these bombs in place, or at least a few to use as examples). It never hurts to mention a few bio weapons as well.

So now that Lone Star takes you seriously it's time to get out of the country, because you won't be working in this Sprawl for at least the next several years. First up you ask for a lot of money on certified credsticks (a million :nuyen: a person is a good starting level), spread up over several sticks and without any tracers (and let them know you have the gear to find any bugs they plant on the sticks). Now tell them that a van is going to drive up and evacuate your team. The hostages will be left in the building but the bomb will have numerous triggers set to not disarm for the next 48 hours, and your death will naturally speed the process of the detonation. After you are safely out of the country the location of the explosives placed around the sprawl will be sent to them, but if you don't make it they will unfortunately detonate as well. If you detect anyone following the van the explosives detonate also.

Now you walk out, get in the van, head to a stash house, change SIN's, use the large nanopaste container to change appearances, change vehicles, and head to the docks where you board a vessel headed to Hong Kong or the like. Before every run go to a ship captain who plans on leaving that night/ the next day and promise him 500,000 :nuyen: if you show up before he casts off and ask to come aboard. Pay him 500 to a 1,000 :nuyen: in advance as a retainer.

The odd's of getting away after Lone Star corners you are low but you would be dead anyways so it's worth the chance. And if it works you can retire fro ma life of shadowrunning with enough money to get the full new identity treatment (DNA, prints, retinal scans, facial features, the works).


So feel free to offer comments, improvements, criticisms, and anything else you have to say. I hope this helps you avoid Lone Star when you run.