LoneStar Gear, Revising SR4 canon Options

[Omer Joel]

The gear listed for the LoneStar grunts on SR4 pp.275-276 seems a bit strange to me; I'll list my issues here, and then my suggestions.

Issues:

1) Why give rookie cops and sergeants different handguns? I'd give the 'Star in general one standard hangun; if a different weapon is needed by the cop's mission, she'll get a different class of weapon (shotgun for bad neighbourhoods, assault rifle for Barrens duty or SWAT).

2) Colt American L36? Why? In the world of armored and lethal gangers, I'd want to carry something with stopping power and some armor-penetration capabilities if I were a cop. A heavy pistol, for the very least, or a shotgun.

3) The Sergeant has a Browning Max Power listed for her, while this weapon isn't given in SR4, only in previous editions. I'd give all LS patrolmen the Colt Manhunter (or a Ruger Super Warhawk - this thing has stoping power glore AND penetration) and a Definace Ex Shocker, with a Remington 990 in the squad car to be used in emergencies.

4) The Defiance Ex Shocker is misnamed "Definace Super Shock" - probably not updated from 3ed.

5) I'd give each cop a CommLink (the 'Star has to stay with the times, after all, and it'll be very useful to access suspect databases at a cop's fingertips). I'd call it the LoneStar CyberCop™, give it Response 3, Signal 4 (with the squad car carrying a booster), System 3 and Firewall 5 (is Firewall limited by Response or System?). LoneStar computer-security specialists will use the LoneStar CyberCop Turbo™ CommLink with Response 5, Signal 4, System 5 and Firewall 5. A LoneStar subsidery assembles these CommLinks from components purchased cheap from another corp (Renraku?).

6) Similarly, I'd give each cop Glasses with Low-Light, Flare Compensation, Image Link and Smartlink, as well as a microphone and an earbud.

7) The equipment listing should add Restrains (I'd prefer the disposable plastic ones).

8) Each squad-car (Chrysler-Nissan Patrol-1) should probably carry a medkit or more, containment manacles, a strong transmitter-booster and more ammo and stun-baton recharge batteries.

9) For Barrens duty, I'd give the 'Star FN HARs, or, for the very least, give them Remington 990s as their standard weapon. Should they get Full-Body Armor as well for such duty?

10) Cyberware-wise, I'd give Plastic Bone Lacing to most cops; it cuts in medical bills for broken bones (a common result of brawls); this would be followed by an implanted Smartlink, Reaction Enhancers, and Muscle Replacement for cops who sign into various "cyber-mortgage" schemes set up by the corp.

[Serbitar]

Firewall is constrained by System is constrained by Response.

The D20 like "Thug and officer" rules are as stupid as they wanna be.

[Ophis]

Actually I've found no reference to firewall being limited, it's a rating in it's own right rather than a program, system is IIRC specifically refered to as being limited by responce and then in turn limiting programs, firewall is listed as a rating on the device seperate to progs. Plus published fanpro adventures (SR Missins 2 i recall) has firewalls shown well in excess of the system.

[Crusher Bob]

Remember that Lone Star may approve several pistols, so you might find LS Officers carrying slightly different weapons. The FN HAR probably is a bad idea. f the officers are trained with shotguns, this would be the longarm skill, while the FN HAR relies on the automatics skill. You would be better off issuing something like an M-1A... (something like 7P -1 (or -2) SA RC (1) Ammo 20 © Avail 4R 1200Y.

[Omer Joel]

Hmmm... By the way, what skill does an automatic shotgun (Such as the CMDT) rely on? Automatics or Longarms? And why does the CMDT have no slug-round stats, only Flechette ones?

If it uses the Longarms skill, I'd give it to 'Stars on Barrens duty.

[Omer Joel]

[Kiedo]

[Omer Joel]

[Gauvain]

Shotguns are badass and cheap. Best BOOM for the buck.

Light pistols aren't anywhere near as bad as they used to be. As in they can do damage now.

All in all, other than the editing mistakes, the Star units seem OK.

Have to agree with the addition of optics and commlink, though. Couple more nuyen for a very large jump in effectiveness.

As an aside, if you're setting up your street cops with heavy pistols and glasses-based smartlinks, wouldn't a Predator 4 (knock off) be better due to its internal smartlink circuitry?


Ah...the days of the Thunderbolt...

[Shrike30]

Give them a FN-HAR (or an M23, but those aren't in yet) without an autofire setting, and say it uses Longarms.

Plenty of cops today are issued semiautomatic .223 rifles as replacements or augmentations for the traditional squad car shotgun, especially in urban areas where the increased precision of the rifle over the shotgun can reduce collateral damage. Doing the same thing in 2070 makes sense.

Or you could have one cop trained on Longarms, and his partner trained on Automatics, and issue one shotgun, one assault rifle.

[Butterblume]

Even today there are cops who legally own assault rifles and are allowed to use them on duty.
Of course, today they are limited to the civilian/police (aka semiautomatic) variants of those rifles.

[Vasili]

I'm going to go ahead and say patrolmen aren't geared out like that. Response teams, backup units etc? Sure.

[Protagonist]

[Apathy]

[Shrike30]

A shotgun's spread makes it effective at close ranges... with the right ammunition and choke combination, you might be able to effectively use it as far out as 40 yards, but that's generally considered to be about as long as a fighting shotgun can really reach. Often times, police shotguns and issue ammunition will not be one of these optimum configurations, meaning that their effective engagement range is even shorter.

The spread on a shotgun poses an issue in terms of collateral damage. They're fairly imprecise weapons, and it's not uncommon for pellets to get by a target even if he's struck by the better part of the pattern, presenting a danger to anybody in that direction even if you hit the intended target. 00 buckshot has enough momentum that it can still go through a few walls before it'll stop, and at closer ranges (a few yards, before the shot pattern really has a chance to spread) it'll go through a wall nearly as well as a slug.

A .223 carbine or rifle gives the officer a much more precise, much longer ranged weapon to work with, and some of the frangible rounds that are available for .223's have less penetration problems than some pistol-caliber hollowpoints. It's a bit of a shock until you think about it... the slug only weighs about 60 grains (compared to 150-250 for the more common LE handgun rounds), and it's going about 3000 feet per second... if it's designed to fragment when it hits something, it's got a lot of kinetic energy to tear itself apart with.

As you pointed out, FMJ ammunition is another story.

I'm not sure what the duty load is like where you live, but my (limited) understanding of Seattle PD's loadout is that they're carrying Speer .40 caliber 165-grain Gold Dot; again, an effort to reduce danger to bystanders by loading hollowpoints. Here, at least, they've gotten over the whole "cops shouldn't use ammunition that's designed to kill people" phenomenon.

[Apathy]

[eidolon]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Edited out, because my reading comprehension sucks sometimes.]
As for penetration distance of .223 Rem or 5.56x45mm NATO deforming ammo, to reduce the shock of "thinking", these .223 Remington HPs and SPs averaged 11" of penetration through water-filled jugs, whereas all the serious handgun defense ammunition tested by the same person penetrate between ~17" and 24". Even .308 Winchester deforming ammunition doesn't necessarily penetrate much further than handgun JHPs.

Likewise small caliber high-velocity deforming rifle ammunition will tend to retain their wounding ability much worse after penetrating certain rigid objects, like most walls, than defensive handgun ammunition or shotgun slugs.

Shotgun spread: with the kinds of shotguns (and chokes) employed by police departments, firing 00 buck at a perp at anything more than 10 yards runs a pretty high risk of some shot missing the target even on a center-mass hit. It's not just a problem beyond 40 yards. There are plenty more instances where missed shot has wounded bystanders than where rifles have -- though admittedly that may more to do with the prevalence of shotguns as the Police Big Gun.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Jun 7 2006, 05:19 AM

[Omer Joel]

[Austere Emancipa...]

And there's the simply fact that killing a big, bony troll requires deeper penetration and bigger wound cavities. With some descriptions of troll sizes and of their "dermal armor", the kinds of handgun loads police use to kill people with nowadays would be woefully inadequate. It'd be like shooting humans with BB guns. You'd want at least .45 ACP or 10mm Auto level handguns firing controlled expansion bullets at decent velocities, and even that would not really be enough so there would always be a shotgun and slug ammo riding in every patrol car.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The way I'd see it is that the stats in the book reflect your C and up (B, A, AA, and AAA) cops. The guys who are not likely to see a real lead-throwing engagement. The worse these guys are going to get into is a battered wife trying to bobbitize her husband.

For the riskier areas (D zones), shotguns or a sporting rifle would not be unheard of, and the carry pistols get heavier as a general rule. Think Predator IV, and he's got either an SGL system in his eyes, or SGL glasses.

There's no such thing as a "regular" cop going into the barrens, and the actual borders of the barrens would really be more akin to a border checkpoint in Iraq. Think 6-meter-tall reinforced armored walls manned by guards carrying LMGs with bipods (or, alternatively, the walls have pintle mounts every few feet, and the guards' LMGs have pintle pegs), with a gaggle of drones on-hand, likely the good old reliable Strato-9, and probably an armored vehicle not dissimilar to today's Stryker.

As for going into the barrens?.... You're on your own. HTR is about the lighest force that would do something that fucktastically retarded.

[Omer Joel]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Like I said - a High Threat Response team.

[Omer Joel]

[Austere Emancipa...]